How to Gracefully Disappear from a Room
by Tricki
Summary: "Malcolm." Ollie's voice is tight, panicked. There is chaos in the background. "There's a situation at G8. We can't find Nicola." Malcolm feels as though someone has sliced open his head and poured ice over his brain. He thinks he can actually feel the Earth grinding to a halt beneath his feet. For possibly the first time in his life, Malcolm Tucker feels completely powerless.
1. Everything I love is on the table

**A/N:** Hello, lovelies! This was sitting 90% finished on my hard drive and with a little encouragement from my phenomenal BBFF Becs, it is now finished and ready for your eyes! Can I say, it was an absolute delight to write these two again.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own them. I also don't own the title or the chapter titles, which I've pinched from The National lyrics. Any technical and police jurisdictional errors are my bad.

Hope you enjoy! x

* * *

 _ **Chapter 1**_

 _ **Everything I love is on the table**_

"Malcolm." Ollie's voice is tight, panicked, and Malcolm is already on edge. There is chaos in the background. Multiple news channels playing at once. Malcolm can pick out one of the BBC presenters and a Sky reporter competing for volume. "There's a situation at G8. We can't find Nicola."

"What do you fucking mean, Oliver?" Malcolm's voice is razor sharp, the implicit threat in the use of the younger man's full name clear to him. Normally Malcolm would joke about the younger man's competence, 'Well, Ollie, if you weren't the political equivalent of Windows '98 running on a shiny new computer you fucking might know where to find her', but Malcolm can hear the seriousness in Ollie's tone.

"I mean she's - missing, Malcolm. There's some kind of hostage situation going on and we can't get contact."

Malcolm feels as though someone has sliced open his head and poured ice over his brain. He thinks he can actually feel the Earth grinding to a halt beneath his feet.

"Look, we know basically nothing. I don't know what you want me to say - I don't know what I should say in this situation."

Malcolm is enraged by Ollie's inability to find the right words, but the truth is, Malcolm's not sure what they are either. There's not a correct answer, other than 'Just kidding, here she is! This is a massive hoax and Nicola's not in the middle of a hostage situation at G8. Next week she's going to be complaining about how much mud there is on the mandatory post-G8-holiday and once again posing for photos beside unhappy horses.'

He knows this answer is not forthcoming.

"What are the options? What does MI5 have? Protection Command?"

"Well, - "

"No fucking 'wells', Ollie! What do we know that isn't on the fucking news?" For once Ollie understands why Malcolm is yelling at him.

"Internal explosion. They think there's been an internal explosion. Nothing big enough to cause visible damage to the building but the press outside heard it. Apparently there's some kind of localised seismic activity that the local security forces have picked up."

"Fuck."

For possibly the first time in his life, Malcolm Tucker feels completely powerless.

"Malcolm - "

"Shut it. Fucking shut it, Ollie. Who's accounted for?"

"The German crew have made contact with their guys. The Americans are telling us fuck all but they don't even let her take a shit without eyes on her so I'd say America. Japan, Italy, and Russia have checked in. That's all we know.

"So she's off somewhere in the middle of a fucking terrorist attack with the French and the fucking Canadians? Jesus Christ, just strap me down and bash me with a fucking cricket bat. The surrender monkeys and the international fucking apologists!"

"Look, the chances are she's with the rest."

"She's a fucking walking catastrophe, Ollie! She probably got distracted by some fucking - Faberge eggs on her way to a panic room! Jesus."

"I know she's the pin-up for self induced disaster but Protection Command isn't. They'll keep her safe, Malc. They've brought her home through shit like this before."

"We've never lost her in a fucking hostage situation before."

"We lost Tom. They looked after Tom. I know this is hard for someone as pathologically incapable of trusting other human beings as you are, but you need to let them do their job right now. They're trained for this."

"Well you're trained to shit golden policy eggs but it doesn't fucking seem to have helped you. You're the most deformed goose in all of fucking Whitehall!"

"Look. Malcolm. I know you're upset right now - "

"Don't you fucking patronise me, Oliver - "

" - But for once you need to keep your shit together and behave like a fucking person, alright?"

When in fuck's name did Ollie start talking to him like this? Malcolm launches on a tirade, shouting "DON'T - !" into the phone. But then Malcolm deflates somewhat from the rant he'd been about to go on. Ollie is right. Malcolm isn't helping. He's not bringing her back faster. He rakes a hand over his face, massaging his throbbing head as best he can. "Call me when you hear anything - and I mean anything, Oliver."

"Of course. And Malc? I know this is monstrously, colossally unfair but, SO1 has asked you to stay off her phone."

"Excuse me?" The Scot's tone alone is positively lethal, and Ollie knows his place well enough to be gentle.

"They've asked you not to call her. They're trying to do some technical thing to her phone and they want to keep the line clear."

"She's my fucking wife, Ollie." Malcolm mumbles. He is no longer furious and fuming, and this may be the first time in Ollie's experience of Malcolm where he has been nothing more than a scared husband. "And at the risk of ruinin' my reputation let me say that there are not enough fucking words to describe how much I need her to be alrigh'. And yer tellin' me I can't even fucking call her?"

"I'm not making the rules here, Malcolm. I'm just trying to get her home safely the best way I know how. And right now that's listening to SO1."

Malcolm doesn't like to think when Ollie fucking Reeder started being logical and, god forbid, even correct about things, but he objects to it in the strongest terms. "I know, mate. I know."

"Do you want me to send the helicopter?"

"If it's not already in the fucking air I'll wring that bony chicken neck of yours the second I set a single fucking breath within a hundred yards of Number 10."

"Good, good to know."

"Anything you find out - "

"I will call you the second I know anything, Malcolm, I swear." Malcolm hangs up before Ollie can say another word, and Ollie would be lying if he said he wasn't a little relieved.

"Is he gonna call her?" Mitchell The Man From MI5 asks, looking up from a blueprint of Novo-Ogaryovo and scrutinising Ollie.

"Of course he fucking is. Wouldn't you?"


	2. Careful fear and dead devotion

_**Chapter 2**_

 _ **Careful fear and dead devotion**_

True to Ollie's prediction, Malcolm punches Nicola's number into his phone the moment he's rung off from their call.

"Please answer the phone." The Scot mutters in something akin to a prayer before pressing the call button. As Malcolm had feared, her personal phone goes straight to voicemail.

"Hi, this is Nicola's phone. Obviously I'm not answering so leave me a message. Or don't. But probably do. Especially if you have a private number. Now I'll stop wittering, but hey, at least you've had enough time to work out what you want to say. Bye!"

Her message drives him mad ordinarily. She's the leader of the fucking United Kingdom and she can't even be concise on her answerphone. Beyond that, he hates being made to wait, and the length of her message always means he is delayed. Today, on the other hand, the mere sound of her voice is the most welcome thing he could hope to hear. The fact that it isn't the usually hurried "Hello?" he is generally greeted by when he calls her personal phone is something he tries not to be totally disappointed by.

"Nic'la, hi. Look... Fuck. I don't know what to say but just fucking stay safe, alrigh'? Don't be a hero, don't save anyone else, I don't care if the rest of the fucking world implodes because there's no twat who people can fucking hashtag 'POTUS'. I promise I will be the best person imaginable if you stay in one piece. Just... make sure yeh come home to me, pet."

Even if he's disregarded his instructions and phoned her, he has resolved not to spend too long on the line so he doesn't call her back immediately, no matter how desperately he wants to.

Malcolm paces the length of their little holiday cottage in Cumbria and wishes he knew what the fuck he could do to make himself feel useful. His wife is missing; he has been waiting for her to finish an international summit so she can spend a long weekend with him. Their time is precious now that she's the PM, and somehow they still manage to carve out chunks of it to spend in their weekender. The events of the last few days pound through Malcolm's mind. Him deciding not to go with her to G8 because he can't remember how many fucking high level meetings he's been dragged to in the last two months, Nicola not objecting to this even though she hates flying without him, because at least this way he could make sure the house was warm when she arrived. The conversation they had before she went to bed last night; she'd complained about how long she'd been in her heels and he'd called her daft. They had joked about when, precisely, spending time wearing jeans and walking through mud in wellies had started to sound more luxurious than dinners with heads of state at Number 10, and Nicola had enquired after Sebastian, the Welsh Mountain pony in the paddock next door. Malcolm had expected these things to be tangible realities in his near future: his wife showing up at their door still wearing an outfit in which she could be photographed when she got off her plane, him bundling her inside and shagging her in front of the fire, him having a few days of her with her hair tied back in a imprecise ponytail and her worn blue jeans hugging the curves of her arse. Malcolm had a right to expect these things would happen, but now his expectations have been totally shot to pieces, and he finds himself trying to avoid thinking things like at least the last thing you said to her was that you love her.

Their relationship is, of course, one of the most inexplicable and bizarre things that's ever happened in political history - only slightly less inexplicable and bizarre than Nicola finally attaining the Premiership. After his near miss with gaol, Malcolm had disappeared off the political radar and done some soul searching. In an indirect sort of way, three years of introspection and a political hiatus had culminated in him marrying a backbencher named Nicola Murray. Neither had intended to remarry after their respective divorces; Malcolm blames his on being young and in love and possibly pissed when he asked her. Nicola simply blames hers on idiocy, and Malcolm has never objected to this assessment. For this marriage they mutually lay blame on their propensity to wind each other up, and their mutual unwillingness to let the other win. The ceremony, small and private as it had been, had been wrought with phrases like "What in fuck's name are we doing this for?" and "Fucked if I know."

It had been easier in the beginning when she was benched for all that time. As soon as she was back in Cabinet the tabloid rags had been all over them, and he hadn't begrudged them that from the perspective of a past Director of Communications. Marrying the person who affected your downfall when you're the first female leader of a prominent political party is certainly a notable angle for a tabloid. This hadn't stopped him verbally eviscerating any journalist who dared to ask him about it. It had become worse again when she'd become Prime Minister, a plethora of headlines amounting to 'Malcolm Tucker returns to Number 10, this time with an apron', but now the whole affair has become something intermittently mentioned rather than something with constant attention trained on it.

Wherever Malcolm casts his eyes in the little cottage causes an irrepressible pang of anxiety in him. He wants her huddled in the corner of the couch with her socked feet tucked beneath her. He wants her sitting on the kitchen bench. He wants to sit at the local pub with her, fish and chips sprawled across the table and intermittent 'why yes, I am the Prime Minister' conversations occurring on the off occasion when she is recognised by a voter. He watches news clips on his phone because they very deliberately don't have the aerial connected to their little television; it is generally only used for films which they invariably argue over. He could connect it, it's there in case of emergency, but part of him doesn't really want to know what's going on, what's being streamed across the nation's news media. Most of the time he can deal perfectly well with the fact that Nicola is a concept in the mind of the British citizenry while she is very much a reality to him. Today, with her life potentially in danger, he is very much not equipped for the clinical objectivity of rolling news. He wants to be at Number 10. He wants the stupid fucking helicopter to be here already regardless of how much he secretly despises helicopters. It's not confined spaces or even the inability to get out as it is for his partner, it's not even the height exactly, it's more the extent to which one is blown around at altitude. Malcolm likes planes. Solid, giant bastards that basically only bounce a bit. Malcolm can cope with that. He's less taken with being in a tiny floating ball.

His mind sails back to the first conversation he had with Nicola about it back when she'd been the Leader of the Opposition. He thinks it was probably the first vulnerability he ever revealed to her, bracing himself against the side of a helicopter with his left hand while amending the speech she was set to give and barking changes into the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear. He'd been on his way to meet her somewhere he can no longer recall. He'd sworn tersely when the little aircraft had swayed violently in the sky, and Nicola (irritatingly perceptive when she felt like being so) had observed idly "That sounds like stress-swearing rather than bollocking-swearing. Is everything okay in the realm of the all-swearing eye?"

"I'm as peachy as a whore in a fucking peach fact'ry, darlin'. Unless you don't like being tossed about like a fucking tomato in a can."

"Are you telling me that after years of tearing me to shreds for being claustrophobic, you're afraid of heights?"

"It's not the fucking heights, it's the fucking wind."

"Well, well. Doesn't that sounded suspiciously like Malcolm Tucker admitting he's fallible?"

"Next time you say something like that, Nic'la, I'll fucking quit. Then you can see how fucking fallible I am."

When he'd arrived at the conference centre Nicola had glanced up at him, losing the vague air of tension that usually played about her face for a moment, and she'd all but purred the words "How was the peach factory?"

"All pit and no juice. Can we move the fuck on?" A knowing smile had touched Nicola's lips. In spite of himself, one had pulled at Malcolm's own lips to match hers, and for once he hadn't minded being really known by her.

Malcolm shoves the memory aside; the idea of Nicola being in reach when she is so clearly not is almost too much for him to bear. He punches her number into his phone again.

"Hi, this is Nicola's phone. Obviously I'm not answering so leave me a message. Or don't. But probably do. Especially if you have a private number. Now I'll stop wittering, but hey, at least you've had enough time to work out what you want to say. Bye!"

"So, I'm not technically supposed to be calling b'cause of some BS technical bollocks but... Look, I just thought I should let you know that I'm taking a fucking helicopter fer you so I expect you to be nice to me when you get back to Number 10." He is careful of his use of 'when'. There is no 'if' that he will countenance in this situation. She will come home to him, and when she does, he will either scream himself senseless because how fucking dare she worry him like this? Or more likely he will be so grateful to have her back he will be an absolute kitten for the rest of the year.

In a moment of inspiration, Malcolm hits the speed dial for her official phone, thinking perhaps it might be more durable or more likely to be on hand than her personal mobile.

"You've reached the phone of Prime Minister Nicola Murray. For diary enquiries please press one. Alternatively, messages can be left be left after the tone."

Malcolm lets out an almighty growl of frustration and hangs up before leaving a message. There is something disconcerting about trying to speak to her when she is unaccounted for. Something eerily like trying to converse with the dead, although he will not acknowledge this.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** I started writing this in 2014 and I fully expected Hillary to be the next US President. She will forever be the POTUS in this story._


	3. I set a fire just to see what it kills

_**Chapter 3**_

 _ **I set a fire just to see what it kills**_

When Nicola Murray was called to a last minute meeting of the G8 to discuss officially removing Russia's suspension, she did not expect it to go quite so fantastically wrong. Of course the Russia question has plagued them as a group, and the imposition of economic sanctions has harmed them almost as much as Russia. This meeting request had looked rather like the light at the end of the tunnel, the Russians looking genuinely willing to negotiate for the first time in the process. So, the seven of them had made the trek to Novo-Ogaryovo with their most important staff, civil servants, and their security details. It's an odd situation, Nicola has found, being thrown together with the most intimidating and powerful people in the world, trying to negotiate for mutually beneficial outcomes while mostly coming from different ideological positions. She had been preparing to pack for a week away with her husband when the call had come through from her Chief of Staff, and honestly she had been barely this side of heartbroken. She and Malcolm had each had a suitcase open on the bed, discussing what they would do, what they would and wouldn't need (Malcolm had claimed clothes would be in very low demand), but suddenly it was no longer filling a case with jeans and cashmere jumpers she was tasked with, instead expensive jackets and official looking suiting.

"Oh it's a suicide inducing holiday in Russia..." Malcolm had sung to the tune of 'Jolly Holliday', dropping a beaten pair of jeans and a fleece into his little suitcase.

"I'm so sorry." She had groaned, crossing to a different wardrobe and flicking through her clothes. She'd pulled out a royal blue dress and an aubergine one, turning and holding them up for his decision. He'd nodded to the aubergine, and she'd added a grey jacket and a navy suit to the pile over her arm.

"I know it's hard t'believe, pet, but you're actually the fucking Prime Minister! As much as I want to drag you off to the weekender and shag you till you know even less about Russian economic sanctions than yeh do now, I do understand."

After depositing the pile of clothing on the bed, Nicola had closed the distance between the two of them, running well manicured fingers through his silver hair. "You're not allowed to give up on the idea of shagging me senseless." The brunette had mumbled, earning a little whine of frustration from her other half. The kiss she had graced him with had been nothing short of lascivious, and had Malcolm not known her plane was now leaving imminently, he would have been peeling clothes from her body before she had the chance to object. Unfortunately for Malcolm, Nicola had seemed to sense this and had peeled away from him slowly; his hand had lingered on her body as she crossed back to the bed to pack.

"What does this make it? Four or five international trips this month?"

"Six. Sometimes I fucking hate when Parliament rises." Nicola had shot the Scot a sympathetic smile, trying to resist launching into an extended rant about how much sleep she has lost in the last month and how close to crumbling she was. It's not that she really had been particularly close to crumbling, despite how much she'd believed it. What she had been was extremely frustrated that their plans had been dashed. Nicola had been looking forward to a few days punctuated by little more than blankets and skin.

Instead of doing any of the things she had so wanted to, like declare that her plane could wait, banish her suitcase to the floor, rid Malcolm of his layers of clothing, and making up for delaying their much needed time away, she had done her duty as the democratically elected leader of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and packed for a meeting of international leaders.

A loud noise snaps Nicola out of the memory of how she got here and back into the present moment. There is a specific spectrum in Nicola Murray's mind of 'ways G8 meetings can go wrong'. Sometimes it is virtually impossible to reach a consensus. Sometimes you get stuck sitting between leaders you'd really rather only share impersonal Christmas cards with. Sometimes the quality of food cannot make up for the lack of conversation. Sometimes the press highlights the fact that your outfit clashes horribly with that of a close counterpart. These are things Nicola prepares herself for before being thrust into international summits, and this is fine, because she is aware of them. She can deal with the impending doom of social awkwardness. She's prepared for it. She goes in having been fully briefed on what she can expect politically, and nine times out of ten, she bumbles her way through unscathed. What Nicola never actually prepares herself for when going to international meetings is the idea that she may not make it home to tell Malcolm of all the petty ins-and-outs. Of the time she almost spilled water on this ruler of that superpower versus the time she actively restrained herself from throwing water on an another one. What Nicola has never prepared herself for is the possibility of one of their host's household staff pulling off their jacket and revealing a very functional looking bomb strapped across their chest.

Nicola's first thought, before even the sensible question of what this might possibly be about, is of her family. Will Malcolm be able to see Josh still, or will James keep her son from his step-father? Will the others, legally old enough to make the decision for themselves, choose to spend time with her bereaved husband?

Her next thoughts are more practical ones: Where is the closest door? Who has a panic button? It takes Nicola a moment to remember that she in fact has one on her person. This realisation only occurs when she brushes the device as she dips into her pocket for her mobile phone. She fires hers off, but she's sure POTUS has beaten her to it. She always beats Nicola to the punch.

She is only half listening as the man barks demands in Russian and their translator scrambles to relay the messages. Nicola takes in things about the G7 imposed sanctions crippling the country, but her brain has gone into overdrive and Safe Mode all at once. She is scrambling to piece together an exit strategy, a way to get home. She is not as calm as she always hoped she would be in such a crisis, even with innumerable drills under her belt. Weighing up the shock on the Russian President's face, Nicola is relieved that he doesn't seem the be involved with this whole disaster. She would really rather Britain didn't have to wage a war until well after her term has expired. Being the first progressive female Prime Minister is quite enough for her. She doesn't want war criminal scrawled under her name in a history book like so many of her predecessors.

At this moment she notices security personnel feeding in slowly from the room's three doors. She knows how this works. There is a procedure about which she has been read chapter and verse. Someone takes out the threat, someone gets her out. She is not supposed to consider the finer logistical details, like which of her Protection Command is allocated to which task. She is not allowed to try to keep track of who is where. She wants to though. God how she wants to. She is a woman who likes to know her staff, likes to know where the people close to her are in dangerous situations. Cruelly, this makes her think of her husband, probably reading something in their weekender with a fire going, waiting for her to bustle through the door and make a beeline for the bathtub, dragging him in her wake. Her throat constricts, and she realises there is a very real chance she will break down at this negotiation table. She knows she can't. She knows the best way to get home is to hold herself together, keep her head, and do exactly what she has practised, exactly what her security detail has spent hours and hours drilling into her brain. The reality of this knowledge does not increase the ease of its execution.

Nicola doubts she will ever be able to decide whether the next seven minutes feel like a mere moment or a dozen long hours, but in this time, everything changes. Someone has wrenched her from her seat at the same moment the security personnel at the back of the room make themselves known. She is turned away before she can see what is going on, half pushed and half dragged along with her seven colleagues. In the mess of everything she is unsure who has her and who is missing. She is hustled downstairs to one of several panic rooms in a scrum of security and world leaders. The whole thing is going basically according to procedure aside from some bumps and knocks. She does not feel where her Protection Command have grabbed her too hard with the sole idea of getting her out, getting her away from danger. She does not recall a single thought that passes through her head, although she remembers the feeling that ideas were streaming through her mind faster than Usain Bolt. On the least treacherous concrete stairs known to man, the American President's bodyguards - are they the CIA or the FBI? Or something else? For a moment this is the most pressing thing Nicola Murray thinks has ever occurred to her - push past her roughly and send her hurtling to the ground. With such little distance to the panic room her Protection Command have resorted to guiding her rather than pushing her, holding her. No one has enough of a grip on her to stop her tumbling, and the fucking heels don't help. No-one except her PC officers pause. They are focussed on their own charges, and frankly she doesn't blame them. Her PC officers don't blame them. If someone else had taken a dive, neither of them could promise that their minds would have turned for a moment from Nicola's safety. It's partly their training, but also their sense of duty. Nicola understands all this. When she is pulled from the floor by her arms she winces in pain, and she must make a noise indicating it, too, because one of them barks, "Ma'am, where are you hurt?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" She replies hurriedly, voice barely carrying among the fray despite the force of her words. Although her protestations would indicate otherwise, there is pain shooting down her right wrist. At this moment Nicola hears the unmistakable sound of explosives being detonated. The ground and walls shake around her. Before she can process this fact, one of her PC officers is shouting "In! Get her in!" and she is once again being thrust into a bomb-proof panic room. The door closes heavily behind them, but Nicola does not feel safe. Nicola only wants to know if the rest of her protective detail is.


	4. I need my girl

**_Chapter 4_**  
 _ **I need my girl**_

By the time Malcolm arrives at Number 10, half the UK's press is lining the laneway out front, a dozen quaffed reporters standing in front of the iconic black doors and solemnly reporting that "Prime Minister Nicola Murray remains unaccounted for."

Malcolm wants to deck one of them, the one who is making the biggest song and dance about how 'Deeply concerned the people of Britain are' and how 'so many people are deeply attached to the Prime Minister. Everyone is hoping for her safe return.'

Malcolm has to actually restrain himself. If he went out there (which thankfully he has enough self-control to refrain from doing) he would rail against the ridiculous presumption that anyone genuinely gives a shit, because even if they think they care, no one, _no one_ , in the whole of the United fucking Kingdom cares as much as he and the children do.

The longer he watches them through the window the more he worries he's going smash one of the priceless artefacts in Number 10. Just as he is peeling back from the window to seek out Ollie, however, his phone chimes in his pocket. He whips it out so fast he fears he may have torn the fabric in the process, but he doesn't care. His thought is only that Nicola is calling him, and he wants nothing more in the world to be true.

"Hello?" He barks into the device urgently, not even taking the extra second to read the name on the screen.

"Malc, I've been trying to get hold of you."

"Katie, darlin'. Sorry. I thought yeh might be - "

"Mum. I know. Have you heard anything?"

"Less than Helen shitting Keller. Nothin' more than what's on the news. I'm being driven out of my fucking _mind_." Malcolm takes a moment to appreciate that while he may love Nicola, it's Katie whose mother is missing. "How about you, hen? How're you doing?"

"Well, it's eight thirty in the morning here so we've not really had enough time to process it. I mean," Malcolm can hear his step-daughter's composure cracking, and he wishes she were here so they could hug, or drink, or _something_. "Jesus fucking Christ, it's... You know, you don't expect your mum to be the fucking Prime Minister and you don't really ever expect her to get into a hostage situation in one of the world's most secure buildings. So I have no idea. Ella's making lots of tea and the boys aren't up yet. Dad's... I dunno. I can't really read him right now."

Malcolm bites back any cutting remark he may have in his utility belt to make about James Murray. It's not what Katie needs right now, and the last thing he needs is to try wedging her.

"The news said you've just gotten back to Number 10?"

"Yeah, that's righ'. I was at the cottage. We were - she was..." Malcolm gives up on trying to tell her that he expected her mother to arrive and spend a weekend alone with him. He gives up trying to manage the mental images associated with this, and the broken compact with the universe it implies. Instead he settles for "Christ this is a mess, KitKat."

"Fucking tell me about it."

"Can I have a quick word with Ella?"

"Yep. Can I have you back before you go, though?" At this moment, nearly twenty-eight year old unshakeably snarky Katie Murray sounds like the insecure teenager she once was. Once again, Malcolm wishes he could hug her.

"Course, pet."

If Katie sounds insecure, Ella sounds borderline catatonic. Malcolm has a good relationship with Nicola's children. Hey enjoys their company. He does not allow himself to wonder whether he will get to see them if Nicola doesn't come home to him today.

"Hiya." Is Ella's greeting, but it is stiff and lacking her normal warmth.

"Are you doin' alrigh', Ells?"

She doesn't respond to his question, and now that he listens properly he can hear rolling American coverage of the incident playing in the background. Her voice hitches, and he knows her well enough to know that one of her hands is tugging on her brown hair anxiously. "Is Mum dead, Malcolm?"

The Scot rakes his hand over his face, considering idly that he will be lucky to have any skin left by the end of the day. Malcolm has not had the benefit of raising Ella. He will not recover from promising things he can't deliver. He cannot magic Nicola Murray safe and sound no matter how much he wishes he could. Once, many years ago, he had a conversation with Ollie about the nature of power, about their inability to help people when they weren't in government. Now Malcolm realises he has never truly understood what it means to be powerless before. Powerlessness isn't having the shit offices and having to go through wankstain Tories when they need something from a Department. Powerlessness is this. Powerlessness is being totally incapable of changing his circumstances; being totally unable to find any information about whether or not the woman he loves is dead or alive. Malcolm feels like going back in time and educating himself on the many ways his understanding of power has been misguided, but right now it is perhaps the least of his issues.

Unable to answer her question better he offers an apologetic "I'm not sure, darlin'."

"We're not allowed to call her." Ella says numbly, and he's not quite sure if she's taken in his response or if she's too much in shock to process it.

"No. They said something about tracking it? I'm not sure. The thing has a fucking GPS so yeh'd think that would be more than enough to -"

"When will we know something?"

"I'm honestly not sure, Ella." He answers. Two months ago they celebrate her twenty-third Birthday, but he is beginning to long for the days she was a Harry Potter obsessed tween who never asked him anything more complicated than "Is the Prime Minister taller than Dumbledore, d'you think?"

"Look, darlin', I know it's a fucking ludicrous thing to say, but you need to try not t'worry about yer mum. She's got the best security guards in the world, and she's with the President of the United States. Nuclear wars would be launched if anythin' happened to that woman. An' that's before we even get to what _I'd_ do if something happened to yer mum."

Ella half laughs at this comment, and he takes this as a sign of progress.

"Listen pet, maybe put me back onto Katie. If you need me just phone me, alright?"

"'Kay. Love you, Malc." Malcolm is a little surprised by the level of her endearment. It is not that he doesn't have a good relationship with her children, or that it's never said between them, but Ella's tone is one of numb insecurity, as if even from all these thousands of miles away, he is her lifebuoy. Malcolm isn't sure how well equipped he is to fill this position if he's brutally honest, but he's willing to try.

"Love you too, pet."

"Hello." It's Katie's voice on the phone now, and while Malcolm knows this, absolutely _knows_ it, for a minute she sounds just like her mother, and the irrational part of his brain fires with relief at the sound of it.

"Just wanted to say goodbye, really, darlin'. Are you holdin' up?"

"Yep. Yeah, I'll be fine. I mean, like, not _fine_ but - "

"I know, Kat. You're the coper."

"I wish I didn't fucking have to be sometimes."

"I wish neither of us had to be today, pet."

Katie's tone shifts as she utters "Ells, can you check if Dad's told Josh yet? If the boys aren't up don't wake them." She turns back to the phone as Ella mutely pads out of the room. "Malc, thank you for looking out for her. I know you're stressed off your head."

"Yeah, well. Yeh're my family and this is shit for ev'ryone. We do what we can."

"Have you ever had something like this happen before?"

"Lost yer mother? 'Course I have. Yeh know what she's like. Attention span of a fucking gnat. Nine times ou' of ten she's wandered off somewhere."

"You know what I mean."

He lets out a sigh. Of course Katie wouldn't let him escape with his weak attempt at humour, his dull platitude. On the measure of Never Putting Up With His Shit, she's just like her mother. "Not like this. Honestly Kat, I've never been quite so fucking terrified in my life."

Katie lets out a humourless breath of laughter. "Listen, Malcolm, I know, in the beginning things were like, y'know, not _great_ between us all the time, but - "

"Kat, it's fine. You were looking out fer yer mum."

"I know. And I know we've talked about all this properly but I just... I like having you around is all. I wanted to say thanks."

"You lot come as a package deal, pet. Wouldn't trade you."

"Oh, good to know." She retorts sarcastically, and for the briefest moment he thinks they might all be able to get out of this in one piece. "Can we have like a serious metric fuckton of alcohol when I get back from Florida?"

"Fuck that, darlin', let's make it an imperial fuckton."

Katie laughs a little more genuinely now, and Malcolm feels like he's achieved something for managing to diffuse the situation, in however minor a way.

"Call me if you hear anything, yeah?"

"I will, pet. Call me whenever yeh want."

"Okay. Thanks, Malc."

Malcolm rings off, his head throbbing with family politics and the stress of the entire situation. He needs to find Ollie and bollock the younger man until he is sure he knows every scrap of information. This, of course, will not happen now he is the husband of the Prime Minister rather than the Director of Communications. It's not in anyone's best interest to give him all the facts, including, if he's brutally honest, his wife's best interest.

Nevertheless, he sets off from the residential wing towards the office where all the various security forces have set up.

"Malcolm." Ollie says, catching sight of him as he enters the room. He still finds it disconcerting to see the once perpetually perfectly suited Scot in weekend clothes. He finds it especially disconcerting because Malcolm still has the ability to absolutely eviscerate people even when he's disappearing beneath a bulky knitted jumper.

"Please tell me one of you lot isn't an incompetent twat."

"Mister Tucker, I'm not sure this is the right room for you to be in." Says an unnamed agent who Malcolm thinks must be MI5. He has that superior-because-I-could-kill-you-with-my-thumb-and-forefinger vibe that seems to accompany so many of them.

"And I'm not sure you have the right genital configuration, _mate_." Malcolm's tone is deadly. The security personnel in the room are irritatingly unperturbed. Malcolm is more than willing to kill someone with his bare hands to get the message across.

"Alrigh' I'm fucking done with this game. What do we know?"

"So, uh, the explosion was here..." Ollie says, pushing his glasses higher up his nose as he points to a mark on a sprawling blueprint of Novo- Ogaryovo.

"Do you have the run-sheet?" Malcolm asks numbly. He's sure it's been sent to his phone, but the idea of looking for it amongst his many thousands of emails makes his head throb.

"Here." Answers Nicola's EA, who looks totally stricken. Malcolm accepts the document from her and dons his own glasses, scrutinising the page.

"Where was this meeting? Which room?" Ollie hesitates. Malcolm reads the anxiety in his pause and knows the answer before Ollie musters the strength to give it.

"Oliver."

"This room. This is the room."

" _Fuck_." Malcolm exclaims, willing his legs not to give out on him.

"Who've we sent over?"

"They're still in transit. Russian special ops are there, three fire trucks en route to the scene. It's a bit difficult because the Russians like to keep things a bit... y'know, low-key. They've got media over there and they're trying to keep a lid on as much information as possible."

"D'you honestly think I give a shit about what the Russians want to keep a lid on, Ollie? I care less than I fucking care about Ben shitting Swain's pubic hair. Send the whole fucking military if yeh need! Fuck, wage a few wars while yeh're at it! Just get my fucking wife home."

"Malc, look, I'm really sorry, but you're actually _not_ making the decisions here." Ollie can see every one of Malcolm's muscles whip with tension. He has the very real sense that Malcolm is going to hit him, and honestly he wouldn't blame the Scot if he did.

Of its own accord, Malcolm's fist is balling at his side, and just as he is about to grab Oliver Reeder by the shirtfront and break his fucking jaw, he recalls standing in Ollie's exact position in this very room. Tom had gone offline in Bali for five hours during Malcolm's tenure as Director of Communication. His wife Tessa had been alternating between crying softly and screaming at people, and while Malcolm had initially been gentle with her, by the end he was all clinical terms and an objective "Look, Tessa, darlin', I'm sorry, but there's just nothin' I can tell you righ' now. It's not been that long, I'm sure he'll fucking turn up like the bad penny he is."

Tessa had, quite rightly, hit him across the face and then proceeded to punch him in the abdomen. Malcolm sees it now, how his apathy must have infuriated her further. Malcolm refrains from decking Ollie based on this knowledge. He saves the option for later in case he needs it.

"I'm going for a fucking walk." Malcolm bites the words out viciously before turning on his heel and stalking out. When one of the nice, highly trained killers from MI5 calls after him "We'll have to ask you to not leave the building, Mr Tucker," Malcolm flicks him the 'V's over his shoulder.

Malcolm finds himself in their bedroom without particularly meaning to end up there. He is accosted with the lack of chaos, and for a moment he utterly despises having cleaners. He longs for the days in their old home when he would walk into the bedroom and find an explosion of Nicola. Dresses across the bed, shoes kicked off across the floor, bras hanging from the end of the bed and pants dumped unceremoniously on top of the laundry hamper. Malcolm wants to be surrounded by her chaos, her mess. He wants to trace the garments with his eyes and consider her trajectory, piece together where she was going and what she had been doing. Malcolm wants to be somewhere where he feels less like she is an idea, a memory, and more like she is a fact and a reality. He opens her wardrobe and runs his hands over her clothes, trying to focus his mind on the differences in each of the fabrics under his fingers. There are silks and cottons and wools and crepes. The feeling of each is familiar to him, but the way they yield beneath is hands, do not fall against the familiar shapes of his wife's body prevents the material from alleviating his tension. Malcolm upends the laundry hamper in an attempt to make the room feel occupied, but he finds it empty. The laundry has been taken and done since the two of them left Number 10, and Malcolm finds he cannot even muster the energy to rant about this fact. The building is full of rooms that he could pace through, but this is the one that is most lived in, the one that probably smells most like theirs. It is not the famous sitting room in which she occasionally takes tea with the Queen, nor is it the garish yellow hallway littered with pictures of past PMs, against which seemingly every world leader has been photographed. This is their space. It bears pictures of the children, and their trinkets from various overseas junkets and adventures. Katie's oldest stuffed toy - a worn Paddington Bear - has permanent residence on the window seat with the impeccably coordinated striped cushion. Malcolm chooses here to settle, beside Paddy, head resting against the window and eyes trained aimlessly into the grounds. He turns his BlackBerry in his hands for close to an hour, until he looks down and sees that the heel of his left hand is bright red with the force of his little device hitting it. At someone else's request, a cup of tea and an egg and cress sandwich is brought, tentatively, into the bedroom on a tray. That Malcolm doesn't shout their housekeeper senseless for interrupting him says everything that needs to be said about the whole encounter. Malcolm lasts half a cup of tea before breaking SO1's edict about keeping her phone free for the third time.

Malcolm holds his breath while his absent wife natters on. "Hi, this is Nicola's phone. Obviously I'm not answering so leave me a message. Or don't. But probably do. Especially if you have a private number. Now I'll stop wittering, but hey, at least you've had enough time to work out what you want to say. Bye!"

"Well, yeh've caused quite a stir down here at Number 10, m'dear. Got half of the intelligence agencies here. I'm hopin' you're in some safe room, tryin' not to get felt up by fuckin' Mattarella. But, look, if yeh have t'stick yer tongue down POTUS' throat to get yer flight cleared faster I'd be okay with tha'. I'd better get off yer phone before MI5 assassinates me. Don't do anything stupid. You know, nothing stupider than usual. Love you. You know that."

Malcolm rings off and throws his head back against the window harder than he'd intended, making a solid smacking noise alongside a solid set of swear words. With little else to do, Malcolm wanders down back into the newest, hottest destination in Number 10 - the room with half the country's security services in it.


	5. Fireproof

_**Chapter 5**_

 _ **Fireproof**_

The panic room is sizeable, but Nicola, claustrophobe extraordinaire, is trying to calculate how much air there is in the room, and how long twenty-six people can be sustained by it. Ever the alarmist, Nicola has the figure at hours rather than days. She's started playing a 'what would Malcolm do?' game, and it has led her, inevitably, to plotting who would die first. She doesn't question whether they'll resort to cannibalism, the panic room is stocked with a pantry that rivals her own, but the chain of deaths interests her. Russia will outlive them all, obviously. POTUS would be second last alive. She thinks, were oxygen to become a genuine issue, the nice Secret Service team looking after POTUS would find a way to kill themselves in order to provide her with the most air. Nicola's Protection Command would not do the same, and she is mildly relieved at not having the pressure of other people's survival resting on her shoulders at this particular moment. Nicola is snapped back into the present moment by one of her SO1 officers squeezing her wrist in the course of her physical examination. Nicola flinches visibly. "Ma'am? Can you describe the pain?" Inspector Foster still has his fingers on her arm, while Sergeant Warren is scribbling notes in response to Foster's observations. Foster is a veritable man-mountain, and Nicola is usually set at ease by his presence, when he isn't inadvertently causing her intense physical pain.

"I'm reasonably sure it's broken, Fred." She says from between her teeth; her use of his first name makes both the SO1 officers' eyes snap to her analytically.

"There is a slight protrusion. Warren have you noted that?"

"Yes, sir." Replies Kate Warren studiously.

"Do you feel dizzy, Ma'am? Faint?"

Nicola has been working hard to keep her breathing regular. "Well, yes, a little, but I've been putting that down to the claustrophobia."

"Alright, Ma'am." Foster continues methodically probing and prodding her, testing for injury rather than asking. He takes Nicola for an unreliable witness - and he's probably right to do so.

"How many hours of oxygen do you think we have in here?" Nicola finally asks as she feels her breath becoming more shallow. She is trying to keep her voice at its normal pitch, but it has crept up by at least three semitones.

"I believe there's a filtration system, Prime Minister." Says Warren with more authority than her rank strictly allows.

"Right. Right, okay, good. Good to know." A look passes between the two Protection Command officers, the clear implication of which is that this is a guess at best, an outright lie at worst. While Nicola clocks it, she chooses to push it aside for the sake of her sanity.

"I think you're all clear, other than the wrist, Ma'am." Foster announces, before scanning the room for a first aid kit.

"Need help with that, sport?" Asks one of the Secret Service agents. Nicola is sure he means it good naturedly, but Foster shoots him a gaze of absolute death, and responds with an icy "I think we've had more than enough help from you boys today."

Foster is an absolute professional, one of the best in the business, but while he's putting a splint and compression bandage on her wrist with all the care in the world she hears him hiss under his breath "Artless bloody Americans..." The words make her smile ever so slightly.

Nicola uses her free hand to dig her phones from her pocket and lays them across her lap.

"My guys roughed you up a bit, I hear?" POTUS asks Nicola quietly after closing the short distance between the two of them.

"What's a broken wrist between allies?" Nicola quips at her, attempting to put a brave face on the situation, but losing ground somewhat when she winces once more in pain. She changes the subject to hide how big a disadvantage she feels at when faced with the POTUS, the most powerful woman in the free world.

"Can you believe there's no reception in here?"

"Really? My phone's fine." POTUS replies, tucking blonde hair neatly behind her ear.

"We're working on getting the Sat Phone up, Ma'am." Warren says.

"Working on?" Nicola queries, a new note of irritation in her voice.

"Should be up any minute, Ma'am." Foster smoothes. The look he shoots Warren tells her in no uncertain terms that she needs to get it done _now_.

* * *

"We've got her!" Ollie announces as a message flashes up on the phone at his side. The relief that crashes over Malcolm leaves him elated, nauseated, and weak all at once. "She's in the main safe room with two SO1 officers."

"Jesus, _fuck_..." Malcolm breathes, and a moment later his phone is buzzing with a private number.

"What?" He barks into the BlackBerry once he's answered it.

"Malcolm, it's me."

"Fuck me dead, Nic'la, I've never been so glad t'hear yer fucking voice."

"And I've definitely never been gladder to hear yours."

"Are you alrigh'?"

"I am, I'm okay."

"You'd fucking better be, darlin', or I'll do someone an inconceivable amount of damage."

"As much as I love hearing you threaten people's physical security on my behalf, darling, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be allowed to tie up POTUS' phone."

"You stole the President's phone to talk to me?"

"'Stole' is probably a little strong... But I… I wanted to tell you I love you. In case - in case anything happens."

"Things have already happened." Malcolm observes.

"Malcolm, I'm serious."

"Sorry, pet. Copin' mechanism. I love you. And I don't give a fuck who you have to throw in th'path of danger - come the fuck home to me."

"I will do anything and everything in my power to be back in your arms in the next twelve to twenty four hours." Nicola promises solemnly.

"That's my girl."

"I'm going to go and call the kids before I get kicked off POTUS' phone."

"I'll see you soon, pet."

"Yes you will."

Malcolm hadn't had the heart to tell her that the children are quite possibly on a plane right now, but hearing her voice is an absolute balm to him, and if there's a chance her offspring can feel this level of relief, he doesn't want to deny them that.

He calls Katie's phone in half an hour and finds her significantly lighter than she was a few hours ago. "Malc, we're just about to get on the plane. We spoke to Mum about fifteen minutes ago."

"Good, I'm glad yeh got to talk to her before flyin' over. How'd she sound?"

"She sounded okay. Bit shaky but no more than - well, no more shaky than if she has to, like, go on TV, or before PMQs."

Malcolm laughs softly at how accurately his step-daughter has characterised his wife.

"Yeah, that's about the long and short of it, isn't it, pet? What time are you lot getting in?"

"Um, in about ten hours. I'll text you the flight details."

"Thanks KitKat. Safe flight. Give my love to the others."

"Will do, Malc. See you soon."

He's put on his best show for Katie, but he's keenly aware that, while she may be in a safe room, someone still needs to get his wife out of Novo-Ogaryovo before she is actually safe and sound and back in Number 10. Malcolm doesn't much like this aspect of the equation. He'd feel more comfortable if this had happened in the States, where school shootings and hostage situations happen with such regularity they're almost passé. While Malcolm would like to believe that the relevant Russian authorities are as well versed and well trained in such misadventures, he has not spent hours watching rolling news coverage of such events, and it makes him selfishly restless. He sits watching the activity in the conference room quietly, trying to not get himself kicked out before he works out exactly what he wants to say, what he wants to find out. He listens in perfect silence as the Chief Inspector from SO1 relays the Russian Special Ops' plan to sweep the undamaged parts of Novo-Ogaryovo first, closing in on the room of the explosion, and then evacuate the relevant heads of state once they're sure the building is secured. It seems a reasonable plan to Malcolm, establish whether there's further risk and leave the pollies somewhere they're safe in case of subsequent attacks. The only question Malcolm has is one he would never have asked before somehow, idiotically, falling in love with Nicola fucking Murray. He asks it, at great risk of being ordered from the room again, because he knows she would want to know. "Is all of Nic'la's team accounted for?"

The Chief Inspector - Dale, Malcolm thinks his name is, but he's struggling to recall right now - turns to Malcolm levelly.

"It was a closed session. Staff were still in their quarters, they followed the evacuation route described to them at induction."

"I've spoken with Gilly." Ollie interjects. "They're being checked over by medics now." Malcolm nods numbly. Gilly, recently promoted to Nicola's Chief of Staff, is far and away her favourite member of staff. Nicola will be glad she's intact.

"The PM had two SO1 officers outside the room, one in with her. Two of them have checked in as being in the safe room with her. We haven't made contact with Patterson."

Malcolm utters an expletive and massages his eyes with the tips of his fingers. Nicola is not a person who will cope well with the idea that someone has died for her, and, unforgivably, this is Malcolm's biggest concern right at this moment in time.

"Do we know how long this will take?"

"Maximum of seventy minutes is what's currently predicted." Chief Inspector Dale - it is Dale, definitely Dale - confirms.

Malcolm decides to suppress the rant he's dying to go on, to save his energy lest something else happens that demands the force of his tongue more.

"Can we play this through a bit?" The Scot asks, rising from his seat and beginning to pace around the room. "So, she's potentially out in the next seventy to ninety minutes. I'm assuming she'll be examined there? So we've got hospital time potentially as well. Then she's got four hours in the air. Am I missin' anythin'?" Malcolm is containing his irritation better than Ollie had expected him to, but he knows unnecessary delays in delivering Nicola to the Scot will be received with swearing, and possible smashing of priceless artefacts.

"No, Sir." Chief Inspector Dale replies.

"So I'm looking at around seven hours before I get to see mah wife, assumin' there's not another little rodent scurrying about fucking Novo-Ogaryovo with a pack of explosives strapped to him?"

"Mister Tucker, our information from the Russians and the Americans is that that's highly unlikely. We have every reason to believe this is a lone wolf attack."

"And look, mate, usually I'd be willing to take expert advice on that, but there is a very and I mean - _very_ \- teeny tiny proportion of people I trust with my wife. The Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland isn't on tha' list, so strangers with guns don't give me an enormous amount of comfort."

Chief Inspector Dale nods solemnly. "Duly noted, Sir."

Ollie wishes Malcolm would be at least a little veiled in his assessments of Nicola's competence when in rooms this full.


	6. I had a stilted, pretending day

**_Chapter 6_**

 ** _I had a stilted, pretending day_**

By the time Novo-Ogaryovo has been cleared by an elite squad of Special Ops and the gaggle of world leaders has been reunited with their respective staff and security personnel, Nicola is wound so tightly she is at very real risk of collapsing, and she is infinitely relieved when she is sat down in an ambulance and thoroughly examined by medical professionals who speak English weighed by pleasant Russian tones.

"Prime Minister, you probably need a full cast on this. We'd need to take you to hospital to apply it, and you won't be able to fly for forty eight hou- "

"No." Nicola's tone is panicked, the thought of delaying her return home is almost more than she can bear. "No, I... Is there another option?"

"Well, I wouldn't advise this, Prime Minister, but we could use what's known as a - Nina, how do you call it in English?"

"Back-slab."

"Yes, a back-slab. That would require you not to fly for twenty-four hours."

"I'd really rather..." Nicola reaches to her eyes with her free hand and presses her fingers into her eyes. Gilly, who has been trying to find her boss since she was cleared by paramedics six minutes ago, appears as if by magic and, reading Nicola's telltale sign of impending-tears says "Whatever we can do to get the PM home would be excellent, thanks. Ideally I'd like her on Cam Force One within the hour."

Nicola removes her hand from her face and shoots Gilly a watery smile. She has never been so glad to see her Chief of Staff in her life. "Do we really have to call it that?"

"I think it's funny. Poor guy deserves to leave some legacy."

Nicola stares levelly at the younger woman. "In addition to almost destroying the NHS."

The Russian paramedics stare at each other, bemused; Nicola clocks this first.

"Sorry. So, are there any options that get me home tonight?"

"We could use a splint and brace? A little more... sturdy than what your guards used. This would hold it in place for the flight, but you would need to have a full cast done once you return to London."

"Okay. Okay, that seems like a reasonable option."

"The flight won't be comfortable, I'm afraid." The second medic, Nina, informs Nicola.

"As long as it's taking me home I don't care how uncomfortable the flight is. Honestly." Gilly does not comment on how utterly uncharacteristic this response is from her aeroplane-hating boss. Gilly tucks it into her back pocket as evidence of how badly Nicola wants to get home, and decides she will do anything possible to expedite this.

"Okay, Mrs Murray." The first paramedic says, and sets about removing the bandage and splint applied by her Protection Command. She is soon bound in a fresh compression bandage, with a rigid fibreglass cradle supporting her wrist and forearm. Once another layer of bandage is wound tightly over the top, Nicola is handed a fist full of painkillers and cleared to fly. Cam Force One is cleared for takeoff once Air Force One is safely in the air. Notoriously claustrophobic Nicola Murray has never been so glad to be trapped in a giant metal tube in the sky.

* * *

When Nicola slides into her official Jaguar XJ Sentinel beside Malcolm, she is shaky. Malcolm is, of course, willing to give her any space she may need, but his overwhelming urge is to take her in his arms and crush her to him until she can no longer breathe; hold her so hard that the imprint of her body leaves a Nicola-shaped bruise against him.

Malcolm lays a hand on her shoulder and finds her body rock hard with tension that is unlikely to unfurl at any point in the near future. Her eyes remain fixed on the centre of the headrest in front of her, and Malcolm wonders if she has even clocked his presence in the car. He runs his hand down her arm, and for the first time he finds the hard plastic splint on her wrist.

"Jesus, pet..." Malcolm mumbles, taking her head and pulling it close enough for him to press urgent kisses to her temple, her hair. His lips coming into contact with her skin seems to break some kind of spell, and she curls into him, clinging onto his shirt so hard she breaks a fingernail. It takes Malcolm a moment to realise that she has begun to silently cry against him. "I know, darlin'." Malcolm mumbles against her thick brown hair. "I know." Malcolm winds his arms around his wife and holds her against him with more strength than he knew he possessed. She barely speaks two words to him during the drive.

Nicola does a brief doorstop outside Number 10 after composing herself in the car, and promises the press a longer interview in coming days. Communications Director Malcolm is solidly in favour of this plan. Nicola Murray's Husband Malcolm would rather she spent all of the next forty-eight hours safely ensconced in the residence and away from the unnecessary danger zone that is the British press.

* * *

The problem with her return is that Malcolm's temptation is to never let her go - in a physical sense. His hands are on her at virtually every moment, and Nicola, usually the more tactile of the two of them, is left feeling a little claustrophobic. He hovers over the nurse who applies her cast as if he could offer any constructive feedback on the process, and when the nurse eventually snaps at him to _please sit down_ , he takes a seat beside his wife and twines his fingers with hers. Nicola can't work out why she finds the weight of his arm against her own irritating when usually she would find it grounding.

The one moment she is relying on finding his wiry arms tightly wound around her, when she wakes in bed in the middle of the night, he is nowhere to be found. Nicola's body tenses at the absence of him, and she mumbles his name almost incoherently. Her eyes haven't adjusted to the darkness yet, and suddenly she panics - where is she? She sits bolt upright so quickly she thinks she's pulled a muscle in her back. "Malcolm!" She barks at the seemingly empty air.

She hears the sound of a cup and saucer being set down on a cushion, of someone rising from the window seat. "I'm righ' here, pet." Malcolm slides into the bed beside her and pulls her into his arms, hard. Nicola frowns - why can she feel denim against her exposed calf? Why is he dressed at this hour? Malcolm feels her go limp in his arms and guides them down until she is lying on his chest, her leg slung over his. "Yeh're alrigh', darlin'." Her hand worms out from the cuff of her oversized grey windcheater and she closes her fingers around his fleece. "Why are you dressed at this hour?" She mumbles.

"It's four in th' afternoon, darlin'..." The Scot responds. He had been watching her contemplatively over the rim of a cup of tea when she began to stir. He has been there since he ordered her into pyjamas at around 8am that morning, with food being quietly delivered to the door. He has left the room only to greet the children once they were deposited at the official residence after flying in from Florida.

"Is it?" Malcolm nods against the top of her head. His usually ceaselessly wittering wife is subsisting on single syllable words, and as much as a previous version of Malcolm would find this delightful, present day Malcolm finds it unnerving.

"Yeh've hardly said two words since yeh landed, Nic'la. D'you want t'talk about it?"

"Erica died because of me." She says flatly and without preamble.

"Erica died because some fucking miscreant with smaller balls than a ferret attempted to blow up eight of the most powerful people in the world - including _my_ fucking wife."

Ordinarily she would smile softly at the protective side of Malcolm emerging, but today he feels no movement of her face against his chest.

"Erica died." She falls silent for half a minute. "That's the most important part I would have thought." Malcolm buries his hand in her hair and lifts his head to kiss the crown of head. The part of him he isn't proud of is merely glad that Nicola isn't on the day's list of fatalities.

"Yeh're righ'. I'm sorry, pet."

"I know." She replies, because it's the least inflammatory thing she can bring to mind. Malcolm wants to tell her that she's almost certainly experiencing survivors' guilt, that the therapist he will all but force her to speak to after such an encounter will help her, that he's sorry she's hurting. But he doesn't think she'll take kindly to him managing her, so he holds his tongue for the moment.

"I think I should go and meet her family. Just quietly."

"I think that's a really good idea." They fall back into silence, Malcolm massages the back of Nicola's neck absently, feeling knots begin to loosen. "You know wha' else I think is a truly, genuinely phenomenal idea?" His tone is leading, the kind he uses when there's the possibility of winning the treasured prize of her laughter.

"Enlighten me..." She says, little energy in her tone, although she has tried to summon it for him.

"I fully intend to phone fucking POTUS' office, find out which of her impotent fucking jockstrap Special Services agents pushed the fucking Prime Minister of Great Britain _and_ Northern Ireland down the fucking stairs, and then fly to DC and feed them sandwiches made out of their own scrotums. I think it would be an excellent way to spend an afternoon - _and_ remind the other half of our 'special relationship' that our Prime Minister is a very fucking valuable commodity and I don't take lightly to having her wrists broken."

Nicola slides a little higher on his chest, nuzzling against Malcolm's neck. "I love it when you're chivalrous, Malcolm." He can feel her lips curl into a gentle smile. This, at least, is a modicum of progress.

"You know me, I always aim t' please." With the mood lightened somewhat, Malcolm takes the risk of not giving her enough time to sleep, he says "The kids are here if you want to get up. I'm sure they'll keep for a while if yeh want to wait."

"Could we hold off for a few more minutes?" She asks softly, and Malcolm knows the lurch of guilt making the request will have caused her.

"Course we can, pet." Whispers the famously unfeeling Scot.

Nicola dozes for fifteen more minutes before pushing off her husband's chest and padding out into the informal lounge to find her squad of children.

"Hello darlings!" She trills with significantly less energy than she usually has when greeting them.

Ella breaks the silence, shouting "Mum!" and hurtling herself into Nicola's arms. Nicola crushes her daughter to her and buries her nose in Ella's untamed brown hair. At the familiar smell of her youngest daughter's hair, Nicola begins to cry. Katie has gravitated towards the scene and has wrapped herself around her mother and sister. Josh elbows his way in insistently, the way only a youngest child used to being the apple of his mother's eye can.

"I wish you were still small enough to pick up." Nicola grumbles into Josh's chest. At fifteen he was taller than Malcolm - irritatingly resembling James in almost every way, including his rugby player stature. Now, at seventeen, her baby is almost too grown up for Nicola to comprehend.

"I'd have better luck picking you up, Mum." He smiles tentatively against her shoulder, which he has stooped to rest his head on. Malcolm sweeps his eyes across the room for Ben, who is hanging back awkwardly. At twenty one, Malcolm thinks Ben should probably be past whatever teenage angst he's had with the woman who raised him, even though more often than not she could objectively be assessed as inept, whether politics or parenting is the topic of the day. Malcolm has long been aware that Ben fell on James' side of the divorce, but he would've thought the near death of his mother would shake the lad to some kind of epiphany about the fact that his mother is not actually the source of all evil.

Nicola shifts and the children peel off her slightly. Nicola's hand continues to comb Ella's hair absently. "How about pizza?" The children, Ben included, nod agreeably.

Malcolm nods and, squeezing his wife's shoulder tenderly on the way past, mumbles "I'll grab a menu."

Katie is about to tell Malcolm that there are approximately fifteen apps for ordering pizza these days, but lets him set off for the menu drawer, sensing his need to be occupied.

Hours later, full of pizza, exhausted from the events of the last days and the bubbling accounts of Florida offered by her children, Nicola falls asleep against Malcolm's shoulder at about eight thirty in the evening. She has been leaning against him for a sold half hour, so it takes Malcolm ten minutes to discover that his wife has drifted off against him. The Scot twists his torso, hooking his arm under her and pulling her so she's lying more comfortably against him. He leaves his arm draped protectively around her. Katie observes the little manoeuvre and feels a familiar little gush of relief. She spent the first two years of her mother and Malcolm's relationship waiting for him to put a foot wrong, waiting for him to break Nicola's heart as he had already done professionally. Katie Murray has spent the last six years extremely glad to be proven wrong.

"She's going to be alright, isn't she Malc?" Josh asks timidly, his voice wavering a little.

"Course she will, mate. Fucken' Teflon coated, this one." He smiles, running his hand down her arm as he says it, only pausing when he hits the bulk of her cast. He is sure for her children's sake, but privately he holds concern for how much skin she might have lost from the whole encounter. Nicola is already skittish, professionally, and he cannot imagine she'll be unaffected by her near destruction. Malcolm brings one of his hands to her hair, turns, and kisses her forehead softly. He would once have described himself as internally impervious to such near-catastrophe, regardless of how much he ran about and screamed during the course of it, but this time he can't shake the feeling of unease that's knotted his stomach at the near-loss of the woman he loves.

"Why don't we put on a movie?" Katie suggests, squeezing Josh on the shoulder. Malcolm hadn't noticed her stand up.

Katie puts on a Will Ferrell movie that Malcolm tunes out of entirely, lost in his thoughts. He imagines the kids are too, or avoiding thinking, but they give less indication that he does. Malcolm trails his fingers over Nicola's shoulder absently, only pausing when he notices she has stirred from her slumber three quarters of the way through the film.

"I think you should get to bed, pet." He mumbles against her temple.

"Yes, because I've only slept for eighteen hours today." She retorts.

"Yeah, well, yeh deserve it." He says, leaving no room for argument. "Alrigh' gang, campaign bus is movin' on." He says to the kids. They pay relatively little attention to the mother they very nearly lost today. The movie is, apparently, at a critical stage.

"I'll see you lot in the morning." Nicola says, waving wearily at the kids, to varying levels of response. Malcolm trails behind her, half hustling her out of the room.

Once she's back in bed, Malcolm curls around her back loosely, an arm draped over her. Nicola can feel that he's not putting the weight of it over her waist, that he's holding it.

"Stop touching me so fucking delicately, Malcolm. It's nerve-wracking."

"Well wha' would you rather I do?" He retorts. His tone is edgy and so is he.

"Just, touch me. Like I'm. Normal. Like you're not worried I'm about to snap in half. It makes me worry that I will, too."

The room fills, weighed by what she's said. "Sorry, pet." He mumbles, and pulls her into his chest, crushing her to him in his reedy arms as he normally does. The bridge of his nose digs into the back of her neck.

"I think I'll go see them tomorrow." She says once they've settled, once the weight has lifted from the room.

"D'you think it migh' be a bit soon?" Malcolm probes her gently, trying to emphasise without verbalising that perhaps two days after their daughter's death Mr and Mrs Patterson might not want to be lumped with the pressure of putting on tea and biscuits for the Prime Minister. She considers for a moment.

"I'll call them first."

"Nic'la..." He nudges her neck with his nose, his tone ever so slightly chiding. He's right. She can't very well phone these people and expect them to turn her down, even if they might want to.

"I'll... get one of my staff to phone them."

He dusts his lips against the curve of her shoulder, and she is so tightly wound the little action makes her shiver.

"How would yeh feel abou' me comin' on all of yer trips from now on?" Malcolm queries, only half teasing. Nicola threads her fingers through his and squeezes them, knowing he is about to let go of something he has been holding very tightly for the past sixty-odd hours.

His voice cracks as he mumbles, "I have never been that fucking scared in my whole life."

Nicola exhales deliberately as tears begin to slide down her cheeks. She can feel Malcolm's own on her neck. "Neither have I."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** Special shout out to my beloved Cara for her expert medical advice._


	7. I want to hurry home to you

_**Chapter 7**_

 _ **I want to hurry home to you**_

The next morning, one of Nicola's staff does as he's asked and has a chat to a grieving family about how they might feel if the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland came for a visit. They agree, and after a long conversation with Chris, who made the phone call, Gilly is assured that they actually are alright with Nicola visiting. Malcolm offers to join her on the nearly three hour car ride to North Hykeham, but she declines, saying this is something she needs to do alone. Malcolm, knowing his wife, doubts that's the real reason but leaves her to it. He pecks her lips, tells her he loves her, and smoothes a hand over her arse as she peels away from him into her official car. She is clad in jeans today, attempting not to cause undue formality at a time of grief. Her three hundred pound Joseph jumper and neat black Burberry trench coat might tip the whole equation in a 'posher than usually seen in North Hykeham' direction, but Malcolm does not comment on this. Nor does he comment on the excessively large box of pastries she's had one of her staff collect from Dominique Ansel - not the patisserie, but the chef's own home.

Malcolm potters back into the kitchen. Katie is chewing thoughtfully on a piece of toast, her back to the solid marble counter and dependable looking navy joinery.

"She okay?" Katie asks.

"Doubt it." Malcolm responds, filling the kettle.

"Dad called." She says with no intonation from which an inference could be drawn.

"Yeah?" Seems to be the most neutral response Malcolm can muster.

"Asked how she is."

"What'd yeh say?" The Scot is focussed on making tea - too focussed.

"Said she's fine. Basically. Little banged up."

"Good." There is a long pause. Malcolm knows Katie wants to say something, is hesitating. He's not in the mood to prompt her to talk about her total fucking Tory nuisance of a father.

"He didn't really sound worried." She says after a long silence. "Like, he was trying to, but I could tell he wasn't really. I get that they've been divorced for ages, but she's still the mother of his fucking children, isn't she?" Malcolm looks at her levelly, assessing the amount of damage this revelation has caused his step-daughter. The Scot reaches over and squeezes her shoulder.

"Sometimes people are shit, KitKat."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's all it is." She pushes off the bench and leaves Malcolm to his thoughts. He has always been surgically attached to his phone, but today he is even more so, worrying the little device between his fingers in case Nicola calls in a panic. He is fully expecting her to, and is surprised that she doesn't until after she has met with the Pattersons.

"How'd yeh go, pet?" His tone is gentle. Malcolm has exceeded his quota of gentility for the year in the last three days. He's worried his vocal chords will seize up from the unfamiliarity of it.

"They've asked me to speak at Erica's funeral." She says, and she sounds held together, Prime Ministerial. Malcolm, correctly, reads this as Nicola being right on the verge of sobbing. Which she proceeds to do for the next five minutes. Malcolm, cold as ice and more lethal than every James Bond combined is always rendered incapable of functioning when he hears her crying. Not being able hold her - being three hours away from her - is an unfair kind of torture.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." Nicola says, more a directive than a true statement.

"I know yeh are, darlin'." Malcolm soothes, feeling utterly powerless being so far away from her when she needs him.

"I'm not, though, am I?"

"You are fucking absolutely not." He agrees. "And tha's pretty fucking understandable, actually." The Scot with the poison tongue wishes he could take her in his arms and let her cry against him, let her work it through her system. He is tempted to jump in his own car and meet her half way. It's still an hour and a half of separation, but it's less, and less is all he can ask for right now. He dismisses this idea. It's illogical, and Malcolm prides himself on being able to maintain his logic, even at moments like this. So he continues to patiently listen to his other half relaying the conversations she's had with the Pattersons, the success of the cakes, the awards Erica won at school. Malcolm listens quietly as Nicola talks through the encounter - accepting that she is more talking herself through it than him. He finds himself, as he almost inevitably does, in the kitchen, staring into the pantry. Malcolm needs something to occupy himself while she is travelling back. He doubts she'll stay on the phone to him the entire trip, and even Malcolm can't decide whether it would make him feel better or worse to have her wittering incessantly in his ear for three hours, too far away for him to stop her mouth with his own.

"Anyway, what are you doing? Tell me something that isn't about people I got killed." Malcolm winces at the desolation in her tone, and wishes there were something he could say to her. He wants to tell her that this outcome was something Erica Patterson, highly trained SO1 officer of the Metropolitan Police, would have been prepared for even if Nicola herself was not. But he doesn't, because hearing it won't make this any better for her. It will make her fractious with him, and he knows that right now she needs him, needs him to be on her side. Nicola has never had to make one of those enormous scary calls that most of her predecessors have. She's never sent people to war, or authorised bombings, or brought home troops despite ongoing local instability. She's fundamentally unsuited to being the arbiter of life and death. Malcolm doesn't tell her any of this. Instead he says casually, "Well, darlin', righ' now I'm wandering abou' the kitchen trying to think of something t'cook."

"Ah." Nicola says, and she sounds suitably distracted, and he is glad.

"Any requests?"

"Whatever you're in the mood to cook." She says softly, and he thinks he can hear a level of comprehension in her voice - she knows he wants something time consuming and fiddly - or something that he can make time consuming and fiddly. He wants to lose himself to cooking the way she wants to lose herself to sleep, but won't be able to in the car. She can hear him pushing jars of spices about the pantry, hear the fridge opening and closing. She closes her eyes, content to listen to him potter for a moment, conjuring the image of him in the kitchen.

"Malcolm?" She says at barely more than a whisper.

"Yeah, pet?"

"I love you."

Malcolm stills. "I love you, too."

"Even though I'm a hopeless, frumpy waste of skin and oxygen?" She says, about eighty percent teasing.

Malcolm smiles. " _Especially_ because you're a hopeless frumpy waste of skin. And just for the rec'rd, I don't think I've ever said waste of oxygen." Nicola laughs through her nose. "Oxygen thief, _maybe_."

"Arsehole." Nicola mumbles. Malcolm can hear the smile on her lips, and the note of normal Nicola that is creeping back into her, slowly returning her to a Technicolor version of his wife rather than the black and white one he's been met with for the last two days. "Alright," she says with newfound resolve. "I'm going to start on the Cabinet papers so fucking Dan doesn't spend all of Tuesday drowning me in his fucking patronising faux sympathy." Malcolm smiles to himself at the irritation, the grit in his wife's voice.

"That's mah girl." He smiles wickedly.

"Get off the phone and make me dinner."

"Said the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." Malcolm quips.

"...Yes, actually." Nicola says, bemused.

"Read yer fucking Cabinet papers. Lizzie's probably already finished them and she's basically a fossil."

A snort of laughter bursts from Nicola's nose, and she shakes her head. "Bye, darling."

"See you soon, pet."

* * *

Malcolm has settled on his menu and is about to set out for the SimplyFresh in St James's Park when Ben wanders into the kitchen in search of a drink.

"Ey, mate." Malcolm says, doing a quick calculation. "How'd yeh feel about coming for a walk to the shops with me?" Ben, correctly, senses that the only answer he is able to give is "Okay."

They walk the half mile to SimplyFresh, dodging the household staff's offers to pick anything up Mr Tucker might need. Malcolm demurs each one, saying he needs to stretch his legs anyway, and drags Nicola's hulking man-child along in his wake.

They chat about rugby on the walk, Malcolm trying to relax Ben more than anything, trying to make sure he doesn't double back before they get to the supermarket.

"D'you want anythin', Ben?" Malcolm asks as he makes a beeline for the meat.

Ben shrugs, then peels off and returns with a can of Irn Bru. Malcolm almost comments on him drinking the second national drink of Scotland, but leaves it be. His relationship with Nicola's elder son is so tissue thin that the comment would probably make Ben swap it for a Pepsi. Additionally, the fridge is stocked with Fanta. Malcolm doesn't know why that isn't sufficient sugary sustenance for Nicola's second youngest. But now that he has Ben trapped by a can of soft drink, he makes the intention of Ben's presence on the supermarket trip known.

He does not look at the teenager while he talks, concentrating on which packet of mince looks best. "Listen, Ben, I know you prefer yer dad t'yer mum - and tha's fine, righ'? But go easy on yer mum for a bit, alrigh'? She's been through a fuckin' ordeal and you know wha' she's like - a normal ordeal is a five minute presser." He turns to Ben now. The teenager has been staring at the back of the Scot's head intently. "Alrigh'?"

Ben shrugs. "Fine."

"Good lad." Malcolm says, moving off in search of onions and potatoes.

Ben trails him to the veg section. "I never really got you guys." He says, offhand, without judgement.

"Honestly, mate, neither have I." He puts a selection of potatoes in his basket. "Sometimes it's better not to question things, yeh know what I mean?"

"Not really."

"If somethin' works sometimes yer best just to leave it be."

Ben drops it, bored of the topic, still not a hundred percent sure what didn't work about his parents' relationship and why things between his mother and Malcolm are materially different in any way. They don't talk any further for the duration of the expedition, but Malcolm feels he's achieved all he set out to.

Back at Number 10, Malcolm walks into the kitchen and finds the other children already assembled around the kitchen table, the TV on.

"Hey, Malc." Ella says, standing and kissing his cheek. It's the first time he's seen her all day. He squeezes her, remembering when he almost ruined her education to avoid some bad publicity and feeling a familiar stab of guilt for it.

"Anyone want t'help with dinner?"

"Yeah, what do you need?" Katie says, raking her hand through her hair in a way that is so strikingly her mother Malcolm almost freezes.

"Josh, what d'yeh reckon's simple enough for yer sister not t'fuck up?" Josh laughs and Katie glares.

"Oi! I'm on your side, you prick!" She exclaims and throws a dirty tea towel at him. It's still damp with whatever the children have mopped up. Malcolm's eyes flash wickedly and he and Katie share the kind of smile reserved for long-time co-conspirators.

"Okay, Josh, can you supervise Katie makin' the brownies?" He asks, and the teenager grins at the chance to boss around his eldest sister.

"Is there anything I can do?" Ella asks. Ella is excellent in the kitchen, having spent hours at Malcolm's heels from the age of sixteen, and Josh has acquired an almost equivalent level of skill. Malcolm trusts Josh to keep dessert under control.

"Could you sort out the pastry for me, pet?"

"Sure." She agrees, and heads to the walk-in pantry for flour. She makes it from memory, and even though she isn't, and he knows she isn't, Malcolm feels like she's his own daughter.

After a few minutes, Malcolm is surprised by Ben asking "There anything I can do, Malcolm?" He thinks he might be imagining it.

"Um, yeah. Course." Malcolm sets him to chopping the veggies, and realises he has almost outsourced all of the cooking. Maybe they could open a cafe...

* * *

When Nicola walks in she looks exhausted, but has painted a smile onto her lips for the children's sake. Her eyes widen when she finds everyone assembled in the kitchen.

"Hi, darlings." She says, kissing heads and cheeks of her respective children, before all but flopping into Malcolm's chest. He hooks his arms behind her and rests his head on top of hers, kissing her hair.

"You righ'?" He mumbles, below the hearing volume of Nicola's chattering offspring. She nods against him, but he can tell the answer is a resounding 'no'. She pulls back from him and drapes her coat over the back of one of the empty chairs at the kitchen table.

"What's for dinner?" Nicola asks, hoisting herself into her normal spot - the counter to the left of the stove. In their pre-Premiership residence, it was the right-hand side of the stove. She has never given much thought to what prompted the change. Probably nothing more sinister than the placement of canisters on the bench.

"Surprise." Malcolm says, leaning up for her lips. She obliges, settling her hands around his face.

Malcolm doesn't ask her about the day with the children there. She doesn't usually talk about work with them, sometimes with one of them at a time, but never with the whole group, and now isn't the time to start. So he leaves it, and attends to dinner.

Malcolm presents her with too much food, roast vegetables, mashed potato, and Bridie pies. She eats it all, irrationally starving. For dessert they have ice cream with brownies that are still warm from the oven. Nicola is immensely glad that this time around she married a man who can cook, and makes a mental note to ask him how he got her children to assist in the endeavour. Lord knows she never had any luck on the few occasions she attempted to involve the children in the cooking while they were young.

The evening is, overall, entirely pleasant, even though the day has been enormously taxing on Nicola. Malcolm takes her warm participation in the family dinner as a sign that she's alright. Seeing this, Malcolm begins to relax into the idea that she is home, he did not lose her, even though he came far, far too close.


	8. A television version of a person with a

_**Chapter 8**_

 _ **A television version of a person with a broken heart.**_

Malcolm watches her throughout the night and the next few days, and even knowing her as well as he does, Malcolm assesses that she is in reasonable shape, and he's impressed - and perhaps a little chastened that he is surprised by his wife's ability to cope with a terrible situation. They travel through three days like this, of Nicola getting on with her job and doing her usual Prime Ministerial thing, swanning about, fannying around, kissing babies. The whole catastrophe. Malcolm watches it on the news with wry affection. It is not until he wakes at 2am on an otherwise normal Wednesday night to find the bed empty that Malcolm thinks there might be something wrong.

He pokes his head into the en suite even though the door is open and the lights are out, wanders into the main sitting room, and, finding it empty, sets off on a trek around the expansive residence.

Malcolm finds his dozy giblet of an other half sitting on the floor of the kitchen, clad in pyjamas and a dressing gown with her knees folded into her chest. Her head is resting against the cabinets, her eyes cast towards the ceiling. Malcolm is struck by his failure to notice how utterly fucking _not okay_ she is.

The Scot stands in the doorway silently for a long moment, taking her in and thinking about how much better care of him she would be taking in this situation than he has been of her. He remembers, with uncomfortable clarity, the way she cared for him in the aftermath of the Goolding fiasco, the way she put aside the grievous bodily harm that they'd committed against each other for the last months and had arrived on his doorstep, intent to ensure he wasn't letting himself starve to death. He had greeted her with his usual contempt, spitting at her " _Get the fuck off mah doorstep, Nic'la, I'm not in the mood for a fucking restorative justice conference t'night."_ After forcing herself into his life it hadn't taken many of these encounters for them to work out that underneath the politics and the positioning and the poison, they actually rather liked each other.

Weeks had passed before Malcolm had allowed Nicola to see the full extent of the damage that being sacked and disgraced had caused him. He had not cared to know about her damage at that time. His overwhelming recollection of her during that period was of her tenderness - tenderness that he did not deserve. The first night he had fallen apart in front of her she had put him to bed like he was a fucking child, and he hadn't objected - fuck, he hadn't even _minded_ , and that must say everything about his mental state that night. In a moment of abandon Nicola had run her fingertips over his face - yes, tenderly - daring to take in the corner of his mouth with her thumb. Malcolm had almost winced at the contact, not because it was unwelcome necessarily, but because since his downfall Malcolm had felt like a thing contaminated, like failure was dripping from his very pores. And here was Nicola, Nicola who he'd fought and ruined and undermined, touching him, and not shying away from skin that he lived inside and still couldn't stand. Malcolm had caught her wrist and held her hand in place against his cheek.

"Stay." He'd whispered, and even in the darkness he's sure he could see the flash of hesitation that had crossed her face. Malcolm had moved her hand and touched his lips to the pad of her middle finger, staring in the darkness at the frozen form of the former Leader of the Opposition whose downfall he had affected. And somehow, against whatever better judgement she may have, Nicola Murray had shed her jacket and jeans and slid into bed beside him. Malcolm had fallen asleep with the weight of Nicola Murray in his arms, his fingers finding their way back around her wrist, wondering how long it had been since he had been held by a woman as he slept.

Malcolm moves into the room and Nicola's eyes travel towards the motion. Malcolm sinks to the floor beside her and feels like he's failed her. Nicola listens to him take a deep, even breath, and feels herself subconsciously fall into the rhythm of his breathing; she feels a little calmer already.

 _This is how well you know this man._ Nicola thinks. _He can make you feel better just by breathing._

Malcolm drops an arm over her knees and lightly runs his fingers over he left shin.

"Don't fucking call me 'Nicky'." She says, the normally sharp edge of her voice blunted by fatigue.

"Haven't said a fucking word, yet." Malcolm says gently.

"You were about to." She counters, and, irritatingly, she is right. He was going to try to distract her with a familiar irritation.

"Yeh know me too well, pet." He whispers, leaning to kiss her temple. Malcolm waits a beat, knowing she will rest her head in the curve of his shoulder. She does after thirty seconds of silence, and Malcolm drops his face to her hair, her floral, vanilla conditioner pervading his nostrils.

"I'm sorry, darlin'." He said against her thick, unruly mop of hair.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for." Her tone is flat, but one of her hands has come up to clasp his arm, the one resting across her body.

"Beg t'differ." He squeezes her leg. "Though' you were doing alrigh'."

"I am." She says, and he believes that she thinks she is. Malcolm doesn't contradict her. It doesn't seem like a productive use of either of their time. What she believes is what she believes.

"I could be takin' better care of you." He says instead.

"I knew so little about her when she was alive, Malcolm." Nicola says, pulling her head back and resting it against the cupboards once more. "It feels - I don't know. Disingenuous. To speak at her funeral. I mean, we talked but we never really _talked_. Not about anything... real."

"Will yeh divorce me if I'm blunt?" He asks the question gently, genuinely. He knows she is on a short tether, and he does not in any way mean to make this worse for her.

"I wouldn't have married you if I had an aversion to bluntness." She counters, her tone hard.

"You're not supposed to be best friends with yer fucking coppers. It makes it worse when they have t'die for you. And sometimes they _do_ have t'die for you. It's what they sign up to do."

"Jesus, Malcolm!" She snaps, and he is about to be outraged at her telling him he can be blunt and then objecting to the particular form of his insensitivity. He changes tack quickly - skipping to the end of his commentary before getting to the middle.

"She'd want yeh t'speak, Nic'la. Yeh're not there t'say what a great kid she was or talk abou' her first boyfriend. She's got fam'ly fer that. She'd want yeh to speak because she worked for you. And by all accounts he _wanted_ to work for yeh." Nicola nods, and Malcolm senses a moment when teasing her might not go down like a cup of cold sick. "I mean, fuck knows why..."

When she turns her head to glare at him she finds his wry smile, and the familiarity of it makes her smile back at him, albeit wearily, before resting her head on his shoulder again.

"Say whatever yeh feel comfortable sayin', pet. Whatever yeh think is true."

She nods, stray strands of milk chocolate hair finding their way up his nose. "I love you, Malcolm." She says softly. Malcolm reaches over with his right hand, uncomfortably contorting himself, brushes her hair from her face and lifts her chin to meet his eyes.

"I love you too, darlin'." Malcolm brings his lips to hers and kisses her reassuringly. Nicola is conscious of the fact that no man has ever really, properly, loved her before Malcolm. She's not sure if that's extremely sad or just a bit fucked up, to be properly loved for the first time by a man widely believed to be heartless, who almost destroyed her entire career.

"So are we here fer th' night or are we goin' t'bed?"

Nicola blows all the air from her lungs out her nose, and again casts her eyes to the ceiling, as if it holds the answers to all the great mysteries of life.

"Bed." She decides, although her tone isn't really that decisive.

Each groans softly as they rise to their feet. "Christ, we must be getting old." Nicola grumbles.

"Darlin' we've been fucking _ancient_ for a decade now."

Malcolm falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, but Nicola finds she cannot close her eyes. After about four hours, when Nicola is convinced sleep will evade her for the next decade, Malcolm rolls onto his side, pulls her against his chest hard enough that there is no option to resist. "Go the fuck t'sleep, Nic'la." He grumbles. Nicola smiles softly to herself, but does actually manage to get a few hours of sleep, crushed safely against his chest.


	9. You should have looked after her better

_**Chapter 9**_  
 _ **You should have looked after her better.**_

Erica's funeral hurtles up faster than Nicola has anticipated, and arrives before Malcolm thinks she's ready to deal with it. Although, this is in part because she hasn't discussed it with him. Malcolm is more concerned by the lack of communication as he is by any other aspect of her response to the incident in Russia.

The boundaries of their relationship were, understandably difficult to navigate in the beginning, and Nicola kept Malcolm entirely at arms' length from her work. He would be secreted somewhere she couldn't see if she was making a speech, arguing that he put her off.

" _It's like fucking, Nam flashbacks, Malcolm. All I can think of if I see you in the crowd is 'Jesus, what's Tucker going to bollock me about after this one?"_ In those days, he put her off as badly as he did when he strolled into her Richard Bacon interview and even the sight of him derailed her. Now, Nicola is largely desensitised to it, and usually when she has an important speech to give, she tries to run it past Malcolm. He has learnt, after many very vicious shouting matches, to give her advice that is ninety percent spousal and ten percent communications expert, rather than the other way around. However, as late in the game as the night before the funeral, Nicola has not so much as mentioned the eulogy to Malcolm since the night in the kitchen. Malcolm wants her to talk to him about it, but he's endeavoured throughout this whole process to let his wife have whatever space she needs. He has never known her to be a woman who avoids talking about her feelings.

When, at ten forty in the evening she is still bent over the mound of documents that came out of her iconic red despatch boxes, with no apparent end in sight, Malcolm props in the doorway of her office - her home office, a ridiculous distinction when two of her offices are both in Number 10. His arms are crossed over his chest and his mouth is tight.

"Are yeh plannin' to emerge tonight, darlin'?" Nicola glances up at the sound of his voice, distracted. Work is all that she has given herself to in the last week. He feels like he has barely seen her, even though they have shared dinner on as regular a basis as they ever do, the children have been in and out - on paper things are relatively normal, but in practice they feel very wrong.

"Hmm?" She is frowning, and he knows she's not heard a word he's said. Her eyes sweep down his body, landing on his socked feet. He looks irritated. He looks like he is trying not to look irritated. She is too distracted to respond how she normally would to his irritation – which is with her own.

Malcolm walks into the office, shutting the door behind himself.

"Yeh've barely spoken to me. I can't keep fucking guessing what's in yer head." His tone is level, open. He sits in the chair opposite the desk, and wonders why there is one in this office. It's not as if she has meetings in here.

"We've spoken." She counters.

"Listen to you, believing yer own bullshit."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She's defensive again, and Malcolm has never been so clear on how much she's distanced herself from him in the past few days.

"You fucking do." He says, grey blue eyes fixed on her, holding her in place, drilling into her.

Nicola turns her face towards her desk, resting her forehead on the heel of her hand and threading her fingers through the front of her hair. He sees her shoulders rise with an unsteady intake of breath and god, he fucking despises himself for making her cry, but he also knows it's better they have this out before Erica's funeral.

"I don't want to talk about it, Malcolm." She seems to be steadying herself. "That's why I haven't been talking about it."

"Well I think yeh need to."

"I don't think that's your fucking call!" She barks, sitting up and pushing away from the desk. This is not the way Malcolm wanted the conversation to go.

She props against the window sill, her knuckles turning white as she grips it.

"I don't want to fight with you right now, Malcolm. I just - I can't."

"I'm not spoilin' for a fight here, Nic'la. I just want t'know what yer thinking. Christ, yeh haven't even spoken t'me about what yer going to say tomorrow."

"I've been speaking to Gilly." She says evenly. Malcolm, on one hand, is relieved that she's been speaking to someone, and acknowledges that of all the people he'd pick for her to be confiding in, it would be Gilly, Chief of Staff Extraordinaire, the only person that stands between Nicola and national chaos seventy percent of the time. The issue, for Malcolm, is why she might not be speaking to him about it as well.

They sit in silence for a moment. Perhaps a full minute. "Good. That's good." He acknowledges, eyes still trying to burn their way into Nicola's skull to get the answers he so selfishly wants from her. She is studiously avoiding his eyes, staring off into the middle distance with no apparent intention of coming back to him.

"I thought you'd think it was shit." She says, the words tumbling out of her mouth, falling on top of one another in a tangle of phonemes.

Malcolm uses every ounce of his self control to hold his tongue, to limit himself to asking "Think what was shit?"

Nicola's head pivots back to him and finds a bemused frown on his face - a face that was almost perpetually frowning when she first met him. "My speech. The - the thing I wrote for Erica's..." Her eyes well ever so slightly, and Malcolm wonders how this woman, this mad, mildly incompetent woman, who happens to be the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, can be standing here worried about whether he thinks her eulogy is up to scratch.

"Jesus, Nic'la, you must know by now that if yeh'd said, 'Malcolm, dalrin', I really really _really_ need yeh to be nice abou' this' I would have? Shit, I'm not about t' fucking eviscerate you over a _eulogy_." Nicola winces at the word, subtly but not subtly enough for Malcolm to miss it. Her lack of response is, frankly, a little damning.

"I'm sorry if I've made yeh feel that way." He says, and for the first time since he entered the room, he drops his gaze away from her.

"I know." She says, folding her arms over her chest and crossing her ankles. It's such a typical Nicola posture that he could almost smile, were she not so obviously hurt by him right now. The Scot pushes out of his chair slowly, giving her enough time to move if she wants, to let him know she doesn't want him, and crosses the room to her. Malcolm wraps his lean arms around her and cradles her against his chest, her head tucked under his chin. He breathes deeply, and the expansion of his chest tightens his embrace. Her cast is digging into his chest, an uncomfortably obvious reminder of how close he came to losing her a mere handful of days ago.

Nicola allows herself to acknowledge for the first time in a week that she is utterly, thoroughly, exhausted. They stand like this for a few minutes, Malcolm apologising to her with arms and warmth, and Nicola letting herself defrost, letting the protective shell she's spent so much energy over the last week cultivating fall away.

Malcolm wants to tell her that he needs her to pull him up when he's making her feel like this, but he can't quite find the words without being directive, without potentially making the situation worse. When they first took up together, first began to tell people about their fledgling relationship, there was an initial ripple of confusion amongst their respective inner sanctums. It had taken everyone a while to work out that while professionally they had been volatile substances that needed to be kept apart, personally, with Malcolm out of politics, Nicola was somewhat a moderating influence on the ever-swearing Scot.

Nicola and Malcolm had spent a tipsy evening on the couch analysing this, trying to find a way to describe it.

"It's like I'm your earth!" Nicola had said, as if struck by a bolt of lightning.

Malcolm's accent had been thicker with fatigue and alcohol. "Yeh're no' mah fucking _Earth_ , Nic'la. Fer fuck's sake, it's been two months. Shit, I get that _you_ think yeh're the centre of the fucking universe but there's _actually_ \- " Malcolm had stopped talking only because Nicola and started giggling drunkenly and pressed her fingers over his mouth. Malcolm had wanted to be annoyed. Malcolm's eyes had lit with affection despite his best efforts.

"Nonono - Christ you're an arsehole. And the Earth _isn't_ the centre of the universe. No no. No. Not that kind of Earth. The kind in power chords. And - electrical things. You know, because I stop people getting electrocuted by you." Giggles had continued to bubble from her lips, her hand had stayed clamped over his mouth, and somehow she had ended up half sitting in his lap, grinning, and Malcolm had peeled her fingers from his face and smirked lopsidedly back at her in spite of himself.

Nicola had begun to chew on the tip of her free thumb, and Malcolm had thought if he needed an earth he probably could do worse. He probably could do better, too, if he really tried, but he could definitely do worse. "Hello earth." Malcolm still remembers the particular way her lips had turned up, before he had brought his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her in until their lips collided.

"I still need yeh t'be the earth, pet." Malcolm says quietly, kissing her head and smoothing her hair with his hand. He lets go of her, his hands taking her in before he begins to cross the room and give her some space.

"Malcolm." She says when he's half a room away from her. He hesitates, turning his head to her. "It's on the desk. If you could - I'd like you to... Read it."

"Okay." She is acutely aware of how deliberately gentle he is being when she is craving normality.

"I just," she wavers. "I just can't be here when you do. I might... I'll grab some things and meet you in bed."

"Okay." He waits for her to gather what she needs from the desk before sliding on his glasses and settling behind her desk. He finds her in bed reading a battered copy of a Jane Austen novel rather than any of the Cabinet submissions she took with her. Malcolm thinks she could probably recite half of Austen's works from memory by now, but the book is a safety blanket and sure-fire form of comfort. Malcolm slides onto the bed behind her, still clothed, and winds his arm around her, bringing his chest flush against her back. He kisses her shoulder, her earlobe. "It's really lovely, Nic'la."

She says nothing, but knots their fingers together with damaging force.

He holds her until she falls asleep, which only takes around fifteen minutes, before he pulls away from her, massages his possibly broken hand, and undresses before getting back into bed, fully expecting that tomorrow will be an awful day.


	10. Where the lightning went through

_**Chapter 10**_

 _ **A hole in the middle where the lightning went through**_

Nicola is once again disconcerted to wake to find her bed empty. She quickly locates her husband, sitting on the window seat in neat black slacks, a white shirt, and royal blue socks. She releases a breath she hadn't noticed she'd held. Malcolm lifts a cup of tea to his lips, eyes never leaving her. "Mornin'."

"Did you at least bring me a tea?" She frowns, squinting against the half open curtains.

"How the fuck was I supposed to know what time you'd wake up?" He says mildly. Nicola's face pinches with irritation - it's not a particularly early morning for her, but she's not in the mood already.

Malcolm crosses the room and smacks her lightly on the hip on his way to the en suite. "There'll be one in the kitchen for you."

"Does that mean I have to get up first?" She calls after him. He emerges with an electric razor pressed to his throat.

"Wouldn't hurt, since we need t'be in a car in an hour."

Nicola groans and peels herself out of bed, taking the bathroom over before Malcolm has even had the chance to finish shaving.

She clips into the kitchen in appropriate-height heels to find her husband at the kitchen table with a newspaper spread in front of him.

She curls her hands gratefully around a steaming cup of lemon zinger and watches him read. "Sometimes you are nice to me, Malcolm." She says, sipping the tea.

Malcolm looks up and is grateful for this small semblance of normalcy. There's a bowl of bircher muesli sitting on the table ready for her, fresh berries sliced over it. Malcolm is worried it will make her hurl - she is already a little pallid, and biliousness is a common hallmark of pre-speaking-engagement nervous Nicola.

"I don't think I can cope with - " He drops his head back to the paper and points towards the toaster, which pops as if on cue. She crosses, kissing his temple on her way, and begins nibbling warily at the dry toast. She hears a newspaper page turn behind her.

"Y'look nice." He says. "Funeral appropriate nice."

"Well, that's what I was aiming for." She says flatly. Malcolm twists in his char and glances up at her over the top of his glasses, analysing the particular lines of tension on her face. He holds out a hand and she reaches for it, coming to stand in front of him, her leg rests against the edge of the kitchen table. Their hands fall away from each other, and Malcolm curves his long fingers around the swell of her hip, clad in a neat black wool dress.

"You'll be alrigh', pet." He says, hoping he can be of some reassurance.

"I hope so." She says, eyes falling on something over his shoulder. She hesitates, catches her lip between her teeth, and thanks the wonders of modern science for colour stay lipstick before saying softly, "I don't want to make it any worse for her parents."

"Without diminishing yer ability to fuck things up, darlin', I don't think anything will make today worse fer them." Nicola pushes her hair back and nods. Irritatingly, he has made a fair point.

* * *

How, exactly, the nation's media has decided staking out this poor dead cop's funeral is a decent and reasonable thing to do is beyond even Malcolm, who arguably understands journalists better than anyone else in the UK. Nicola doesn't notice them at first, has turned to Malcolm to ask "Do you think there's some kind of rivalry between North and South Hykeham?" She clocks the closing of his face, and turns her head over her shoulder to be met with a series of flashes and a gabbling group of reporters already on site at the Parish Church of All Saints.

"Shitting Henry." She whispers.

"Yeh're alrigh'." Malcolm says, slipping into Communications Director voice rather than supportive spouse voice. She can see him plotting out the logistics in his head, and she's glad, because she doesn't want to be. The Range Rover full of her Protection Command pulls up behind her sleek black Sentinel, officers jumping out to assist with the squabbling press. Malcolm is already out of the car and by Nicola's side door when she kicks her legs out.

There are police close at hand, and indeed all over the place, since many of them have asked to come to Erica's funeral to pay their respects, but Nicola has discussed with the senior officer that she'd rather not cause a commotion if possible. Her Protection Command hears this message as 'don't end up half carrying me in to get me through a crowd', and they're right. But it is also against their instincts when there are this many journalists who seem to have taken leave of their sense of basic decency.

Malcolm stands on her left side as if protecting her broken wrist, but he thinks after that he'd have been better going the opposite route and letting her swat anyone who got a bit close with the plaster covered arm. He angles his body defensively around her, his right arm curved around her back. Once he thought he had learnt to drown out journalists' repeated cries of "Prime Minister!" but today they are deafening him, and he can only imagine the effect they are having on his skittish other half.

"Prime Minister, how do you respond to claims from your back bench that you're not up to the job?"

"Prime Minister, is it true there's another leadership push on?"

"I'm here for the funeral of one of my staff, so I'm sure you'll understand when I say I'm not answering any questions." Nicola's words are authoritative. She eyeballs the press pack now, where once she would have kept her gaze on her feet.

"Do you feel guilty for Miss Patterson's death, Ms Murray?" Malcolm feels every muscle in her back whip together with tension.

"Alright! Give the lady some room." Malcolm barks, and somehow the command has seemed relatively civil - would not play badly on the evening news. Nicola wishes she could reach for one of his hands, but unfortunately one is firmly occupied on her lower back and the other is shooing away members of the press.

Her Protection Command officers begin to filter through the press pack, breaking it up and separating it out enough so that she and Malcolm can get through, and soon they are standing in the body of a Victorian Gothic church, the kind that can be found all over the country. It is quite a grand affair, though, for a relatively small town.

Nicola turns to one of her SO1 officers, with more presence of mind than Malcolm had given her credit for in this moment and says "Could we make sure the press pack doesn't jump on anyone else coming in?" Her officer nods - Collins is his last name, so everyone calls him Tom. He's the most senior officer they ever send her out with. She hopes that's not an indication of risk today. Before she can ask he has set out for the door to do as she's requested. Malcolm has swapped sides so he can thread their fingers together and rubs his thumb over her knuckles. He doesn't say anything, although his head is full of what he could say. While he is deep in the middle of this, Nicola notices Erica's parents and begins making her way across the church, which is still relatively empty.

"Maureen, Dave. I'm so sorry about the press pack outside."

"Oh, Nicola, please don't apologise." Maureen Patterson says, embracing Nicola warmly. Malcolm is still a little baffled by how good Nicola can be one on one, given how atrocious she always was at building relationships with journalists. And other MPs. And most of her staff. Nicola kisses Dave Patterson on the cheek. She has spent two hours with these people mere days after the worst event of their life occurred and somehow managed to create a genuine bond with them. The strategist in him is impressed.

"Sorry, this is my husband, Malcolm." She says, turning her shoulders and bringing Malcolm into the conversation. Malcolm unfolds his arms and crosses to them, shaking hands with Dave and squeezing Maureen's upper arm apologetically. "I'm very sorry fer yer loss."

They thank him, and Malcolm resists the urge to settle his hand on Nicola's back, to show how relieved he is that this happened to anyone but him. He feels bad for the reaction, honestly, but he is also honest enough with himself own it. They chat a bit more, but soon more of the guests are arriving, and Nicola decides to slide into a pew, lest people start commenting on the trashy politician hogging all the limelight. She sits on the far end, so she can get up easily. Malcolm had an extra two packets of tissues forced upon him the night before by his wife's Chief of Staff, who is secreting herself somewhere in the back. She does not want to be a feature of the day's events.

Nicola, who can usually keep her face under control (and has improved at this immeasurably since being married to Malcolm and being party to certain indecent activities occurring under her desk) has a steady stream of tears flowing down her cheeks for the entirety of the service. Gilly was indeed correct - by the time they arrive home she has almost exhausted all three pocket packets of tissues.

"I would now like to invite our Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Nicola Murray, to say a few words." Nicola winces at the fulsomeness of the title the Priest has used, but rises from her seat on the end of the third row and makes her way up the side of the church. Malcolm watches his wife carefully, watches her weighing up whether to deviate from the written word, sees her confidence wobble at the idea that she might fuck this up. He knows she wants to begin with a greeting, break the ice as she normally does, but the tone of the event feels wrong for it. Malcolm knows discomfort leads Nicola to try to joke - something she is not particularly adept at; he hopes she can suppress the urge.

"In a way, I feel like a bit of an imposter, standing here and talking to you all about Erica. You are the people who were closest to her - Father Peter, who baptised her, her wonderful parents, Dave and Maureen, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins, her friends. I have loved hearing the stories of Erica when she was a child today. I wish she had told me more of them herself. The mischievous, rugby loving, sporty little kid who never believed the coaches who said she couldn't keep up with the boys. I have to say, it explains a lot about the woman I knew. The first time I met Erica she was twenty four years old. I'd been the Prime Minister for about six weeks. I remember looking at her and thinking 'My god. This woman is the same age as my daughter and she looks fifty times more competent than I do.'" The room rolls with a gentle burst of laughter, and Malcolm notes her parents turning to each other and smiling tearfully.

"Erica stuck out her hand and said 'Good morning, Ma'am. I'm one of your Protection Command officers'. And honestly, I don't think I have ever felt safer than at that moment.

"Erica was the kind of person who would always go the extra mile for you - she was more loyal than anyone I have ever met, harder working, and more intuitive. She was extraordinarily kind - even after coming up through an organisation that is heavily male dominated, where emotional intelligence isn't always valued for the skill it is.

"I thought a lot about what anecdote was worth telling you today, and I came up with one that, to me, has always summed up exactly the kind of person Erica is." Malcolm sees her hover over the tense change, sees her struggle with it. "One night we'd been touring some of the flood affected towns in the North. Erica was in the lead car, ahead of me, and it pulled over. My other staff and I were sitting in the second car wondering what was going on. We pulled up behind her, and hopped out. Erica had found a lost dog on the side of the road. He was muddy, obviously starving. Erica pulled off her jacket, and started rubbing the dog dry. She turned around and said 'Can someone grab me a bottle of water from the boot?'. Without thinking about it I went and found the stash of water she always kept for us. Erica started feeding the dog water out of the bottle. Thankfully it had a collar, so Erica managed to track down the owners. When she dropped the dog off the owners cried. Their house was almost totally destroyed by the flooding, and they thought Charlie - the dog - had drowned. But beyond this, Erica, tried to get me to do the actual hand-back. We had an argument, sitting in the back of the car patting this poor exhausted dog, Erica saying 'Ma'am, you're the Prime Minister. It will mean more coming from you.' But the truth was I wouldn't have even seen Charlie. I had fallen asleep in the back of the car." Another roll of gentle laughter. Malcolm is both interested and relieved that she's deviated from the script a little, relaxed into her topic.

"Erica was awake in the car in front, not just making sure I was okay, but keeping an eye out for anyone else who wasn't. So absolutely Erica. Whenever I wasn't in the mood for the demands of my job, Erica had a way of turning my days into adventures. I am absolutely grateful for the four years I spent getting to know Erica. She..." Nicola's voice breaks and her eyes well. She looks up and finds Malcolm, steady ice blue eyes silently urging her on, with a mix of emotions in his gaze that she can't unpick at this very moment. Nicola looks back to her notes to avoid keeping eye contact with any of Erica's nearest and dearest. "She died protecting me. I will never be able to thank her enough for that. And I will never be able to apologise enough to everyone who loved her that she isn't here anymore. Go well, darling girl. Thank you for all our adventures. I wish we had time for more of them." Nicola looks to Dave and Maureen and nods almost imperceptibly. Maureen mouths 'thank you'. Nicola slinks back to her seat, shoulders rounded, trying to make herself invisible.

She slides into the seat beside Malcolm and lets him wind an arm behind her shoulders, place his hand on the far side of her head and gently direct her closer so he can kiss the side of her head. She cries steadily but stiffly, trying not to pull the focus from the lovely dead lady to the crying PM.

He leaves his arm around her shoulders and clasps her hand with his free one. Nicola can feel how lost in thought he is. She is too involved in the service to analyse why at this point in time. "Good job, pet." Malcolm breathes into her ear.


	11. String ourselves up for love

_**Chapter 11**_  
 _ **All the very best of us string ourselves up for love.**_

Nicola and Malcolm slip out after the service - Nicola has apologised in advance to Dave and Maureen for not staying for the wake. Malcolm is relieved she's made the decision. It's a long drive back, and she looks about as brittle as he's ever seen her. He tucks her into her car and thanks all the higher powers that the press don't jump on her again. There are snappers, of course, but they're at a respectful distance this time.

"Yeh alrigh', darlin?" Malcolm asks, offering his hand across the back seat and studying her. She is nibbling at the skin on the side of her index finger with a little too much vigour.

She nods, and takes his hand, swapping to chewing the other index finger. "Yes, I'm fine."

They barely speak for the rest of the drive home, but around an hour and a half in, Nicola unbuckles her seatbelt and slides into the middle of the car. Malcolm is comforted by the weight of her body against his, but mumbles "Seatbelt" at her.

"I've survived a terrorist attack, Malcolm, do we really think I'm likely to be in a car accident within the same week?" She says, but obliges, sensing him gathering all the reasons that's one hundred percent not a fucking good excuse in his head - and knowing that he is, irritatingly, correct.

"Still not used t'yer Fit Fer The Public hair." Malcolm jokes softly, running his fingers over chocolate brown locks that have been carefully tamed by half an ocean of serum and a heavy duty straightener.

"Still not used to your Not A Complete Arsehole setting." Nicola retorts, smiling weakly against his shoulder.

When they pull up at Number 10, Malcolm makes straight for the kitchen and Nicola makes straight for the walk-in wardrobe.

When she comes back through the kitchen to find her husband, she is wearing jeans and a loose knitted mohair jumper. Malcolm wants to touch her, just to feel the softness of it under his hands, but he lets her flop into a kitchen chair instead. Her hair isn't quite long enough for the ponytail she's hurriedly tied it into. Malcolm, in ordinary circumstances, loves Nicola when she looks like this. This is the Nicola he expected to be lazing around the cottage with last week.

Nicola looks at the bowl of carefully crafted pork meatballs in front of her with little enthusiasm. They are usually her favourite comfort food. Today she can barely muster the energy to eat.

"Yeh need t'eat somethin', Nic'la." Malcolm says.

"You don't need to parent me." She retorts, managing to avoid sounding like a teenager, but only just.

He doesn't respond. Merely sits and digs into his meatballs, thinking perhaps a smidge more cinnamon might have improved them.

"Alright, fuck this." Malcolm says after they have picked idly at their food for fifteen minutes without so much as a syllable passing between them as thoughts swirl through their heads ferociously.

"Shall we file for divorce?" Nicola quips with a wry smile playing wearily around her lips.

"Look maybe after the election, but right now why don't yeh just put some shoes on, yeah? And maybe a coat."

"Where are we going?" Nicola asks, and even though she'd intended to stay in her seat, in spite of herself she rises and reaches for the coat on the kitchen coat rack.

"Just... Stop askin' questions, woman." Malcolm says, waving his hands at her.

"I don't want to go out, Malcolm. Can we just go... to bed or something?"

"Nope." He says, winding a scarf around his neck.

"Malcolm I'm exhausted."

"Yep." He nods dismissively before meeting her eyes. "Humour me."

Nicola sighs dramatically. "Can you at least tell me whether I'm allowed to wear my trainers?"

Malcolm pecks her temple. "They're by the door."

"Thank god."

Malcolm leans against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest while she ties her laces, and she thinks, grudgingly, that even in advancing years he's an attractive man.

She buries her fists into the pockets of her black trench and looks at him evenly, waiting for him to lead the way.

"If we're going on a Fanta run I will throw you in front of a fucking bus." She cautions as he ushers her out the door.

"Don't worry, darlin', I'd be sure t'take you with me." He replies with an evil glint in his eye.

Nicola walks down the street with her hands deep in her pocket. Malcolm is aware of her closed body language - normally she would take his arm while they're walking, regardless of whether or not he particularly wants her to. He nudges her gently with his shoulder while they walk, and she barely cracks a smile. He's worried, too, by the way she complains about the length of the walk - not the fact that she complains, she always does when they make this trek to their favourite, relatively unoccupied pub, just far enough to be out of the Westminster bubble.

Tonight, it's not a good natured "Why couldn't we find a fucking local that was, I don't know, local?" like he usually gets, but a grumbled "Did you really need to drag me out tonight?"

Normally Malcolm would bite at this, but tonight he is consciously non-confrontational. In fourteen minutes (three minutes longer than it normally takes them) Malcolm is steering Nicola into The Harp, his hand settled on her lower back tenderly. Nicola averts her eyes, apart from when she briefly meets the gaze of the boisterous bartender and offers him a tight smile.

"Ey, Ted." Malcolm says.

"My favourite soulless fucker. Glad you're okay, Nicola."

With her eyes still unfocussed she says "Thanks, Ted," but continues walking.

"Fanta and a pinot grigio?" Ted asks Malcolm softly.

"Two whiskeys, straight up." Malcolm says, before pointing to Nicola's back and mouthing 'double'. Ted nods and sets about pouring the drinks, while Nicola climbs up the stairs to their usual table in the corner. She settles herself in a plush leather armchair and waits for Malcolm to follow her with the drinks. Usually she would spend a few minutes leaning on the bar chatting to Ted, but tonight she hasn't got the energy. Sensing Nicola's dejection, Ted waves Malcolm upstairs, a silent agreement that he can bring them their drinks.

Ted finds them at their usual table, safely tucked into the corner in rich cognac armchairs. He deftly gives the double to Nicola, and hands the other glass to Malcolm so he can wrap his fingers around it before Nicola notices the difference in their volume. Like all good bartenders, he knows when to stop and chat and when to give them their peace.

"Bottoms up." Malcolm instructs, knowing Nicola will fight him on most things, but not on drinking related challenges. She downs the glass in one neat swig, and Malcolm's lips quirk with affection for her. Ted, insightful man that he is, has expected this course of action from the couple when they didn't order their usual. He catches Malcolm's eye and goes down to fetch another round.

"Are you trying to get me drunk, Malcolm?" Nicola asks when Ted swaps the full glasses for the empties.

"Thought it might be the quickest way t'get yeh to talk to me."

Nicola bristles almost instantly, as Malcolm had expected her to. At least if she's shouting at him she's talking to him. "Have it ever crossed your mind that I don't fucking _want_ to talk about it, Malcolm? That maybe I just want to process this in my own way?" She studies his face, the face of the best husband she's had, the man she loves; even though he's not visibly reacted to her chastisement, she softens a little. "I don't need you trying to fix me."

"I'm not tryin' t'fix yeh, Nic'la. I like yeh even when yeh're like this. I'm just trying to help yeh. Because I love you. In case you missed that part in the story."

"I didn't. Miss it. But you pushing me isn't actually helping."

Malcolm sips contemplatively at his second whiskey. "I jus' want to know how yeh feel, pet."

At last, Nicola thinks he has requested something of her that she can give. "I feel exhausted, Malcolm. I feel exhausted and I feel confused and guilty and I feel like somehow, in the middle of all that, I'm supposed to be the Prime Minister. And I barely know how to be the fucking Prime Mime at the best of times, Malcolm, let alone when I feel like this."

Again, Malcolm is relieved to hear her say anything of consequence.

"They're making me talk to someone - did I tell you that?" She asks, the words quick and cutting. Malcolm only just manages to refrain from replying that she hasn't really told him anything in days. She pushes her hair back irritably and takes another liberal swig of her drink. "That's exactly what I need right now, to sit in some bloody psychiatrist's office and tell them how I can't cope with one of my staff dying for me, and how I didn't listen to any of my voice messages for three days and how you sounded so frightened and _I did that to you_. And what the fuck is this job going to _do_ to us?" She has started to cry mid-way through her rampage, she finishes the whiskey and bangs the glass on the table. Nicola Murray, who once hated Malcolm Tucker with a passion rarely know to human kind, stands and awkwardly sinks onto his chair. She cries into the curve of his neck, the words "I'm so sorry" coming out in wet bursts. The pragmatic part of the Scot wishes she'd chosen to release her grip on her emotions in a less public place, but the pub is barely occupied, and at this point he'd rather they sort this out between themselves and end up with a picture of her crying in his lap on Twitter or the Mail than never speak again.

Malcolm strokes her hair and shushes her. "You've nothing to be sorry for, pet."

"I could have ruined your life because of a _job_." She says, pulling back from him to meet his gaze. He can read her distress, her guilt. He had not realised until now that part of her guilt is about him and the children, not only Erica.

Malcolm becomes flippant, because it's familiar and he thinks it might diffuse her somewhat. "Well, not mah _whole_ life." She doesn't relax, her face doesn't alter, and he recognises the need to be serious. "Nic'la. Either of us could get hit by a bus. Look, alrigh', on one hand, yer job does make you a target, but it also means yeh get better warning and highly trained police at yer disposal." He can see her waiting to protest that getting her highly trained police killed is a significant contributor in her current state of emotional distress, but he cuts her off before she has the chance. "And yer job isn't just a job, Nic'la. You run a government. Fuck knows how, but yeh do. That's not just a job. It's worth taking risks for."

Her tears have largely subsided. Her voice is clear when she says "My risks impact on you. And the children."

Malcolm offers her a soft, wry smile. "Pet, I'd be a pretty fucking unforgivably negligent husband if I said yeh shouldn't be the Prime Minister because I'm afraid yeh'll get blown up." Malcolm takes her face in his hand, rubbing a tear trail from her cheek. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I don' want yeh t'get blown up," Nicola laughs softly, shakily. "But if yeh do, yeh might as well be the leader of a major economic power." Nicola kisses him. Even though she is still worried, is still thinking about what would have become of her husband and children had she not survived her trip to Russia, she takes some comfort in Malcolm's understanding of why she does what she does, his desire for her to continue.

Without request, Ted brings them another round, and does not comment on the Prime Minister taking up residence on her husband's lap.


	12. Fight like girls for our place

A/N: Well, here is almost five years of very intermittent writing! Thank you for sticking with it, and thanks again to my beloved Becs for getting me over line on it. Massive thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. x

* * *

 _ **Chapter 12**_  
 _ **We'll fight like girls for our place at the table**_

Nicola does as everyone requests and sees a nice, discreet psychiatrist. Nicola grudgingly admits to Katie over dinner one night that it is, indeed, helping.

One night a few weeks later, after washing the dishes out of desire to do something normal, Nicola balls up the tea towel and tosses it onto the bench, before turning to her husband. Malcolm is struck by a memory nights they spent like this in his old house.

"I think I've worked out what will help." Malcolm nods her on expectantly. "I'm going to start a scholarship for her."

"I think that's a really nice idea, pet." He lets a beat pass before he adds wryly. "How's the Chancellor feel about it?"

"I told Margery we're already in deficit and an extra two hundred thousand pounds a year won't kill us. Particularly two hundred thousand pounds to support female police officers."

Malcolm grins at her. She's thought this through better than he'd expected, and he's proud of her. "That's mah girl." For the first time in weeks, his wife has a spark of purpose back in her eyes, and Malcolm is extremely glad to witness its return.

Nicola throws herself into the little project, spending more time on it than strictly necessary for someone in her position. Gilly manages the other staff carefully, and eviscerates any Member of Parliament who even vaguely suggests that Nicola isn't doing her job. Nicola makes the announcement at the passing out of two hundred new officers at Hendon. Only a third of them are women, and while all the officers, new graduates and ranking officers alike, applaud Nicola respectfully, the women in the audience clap a more vigorously. One of the senior officers who trained the recruits chances a whistle, and will surely cop a bit of a dressing-down for it later.

Malcolm has taken the unusual step of accompanying his wife to the event. She finds his gaze in the audience and he nods to her, eyes saying _well done, pet,_ while his mouth is unable to.

She returns to his side to watch the end of the ceremony. He squeezes her fingers, his grasp hard and reassuring around her fingers.

The following week, Nicola makes a statement in the Commons, re-announcing the initiative just as Malcolm would have suggested to her.

He watches her on the television from Number 10, peering over his glasses with his feet on the coffee table.

"Mister Speaker, I rise advise the House of a new Government initiative, the Erica Patterson Memorial Scholarship for Women in Policing. Many in this place know of the debt I owe to Sergeant Erica Patterson. Erica was stationed as one of my Protection Command officers. She was with me during the Novo-Ogaryovo bombing. Erica did not come home. Without her service, her dedication, her professionalism, and her unshakeable loyalty, I wouldn't have the privilege of standing at this dispatch box addressing you today.

"Here in the United Kingdom we are lucky enough to have one of the most highly skilled police forces in the world. However, despite the many excellent advances the Metropolitan Police have taken to increase diversity in the force, to create inclusive working environments, representation of women in senior or highly specialised positions is still lacking. At the last census, only twenty percent of Sergeants were women. In ranks above Sergeant, the statistics tell much the same story.

"I hope the appointment of our first female Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police helps improve opportunities for women in policing in this country. But hoping alone does not create cultural change. The Erica Patterson Memorial Scholarship will be an annual pool of two hundred thousand pounds, which will can be used for support services and professional development opportunities for women of any rank seeking to advance their career. It will support women to take the challenging steps between ranks, to climb the ladder from Constable to Sergeant, Inspector, Superintendent, Commander, and Commissioner. I hope that this scholarship will assist the Metropolitan Police to identify the next cohort of female leaders in the organisation, and help the dedicated, passionate, and highly skilled women of the Metropolitan Police to break every glass ceiling in sight, using any and every tool available to them."

There is a polite murmur of "hear, hear!" from the Government MPs, and some of the Coalition, too – but only the few who understand alienating women is electorally unwise.

"I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the SO1 officers in my protective detail, but two in particular who are very important to me. Unfortunately, I can't name them for security reasons – see, I do listen to the safety briefings." She quips, and a gentle laugh ripples throughout the Commons. Malcolm watches Nicola look up. He knows she's finding Inspector Fred Foster and Sergeant Kate Warren in the gallery. The watery smile she gives them is entirely too fond, and Malcolm thinks they'll probably be taken off her soon. She's much too attached. But, then again, Nicola is a creature of attachment, and the cycle will repeat if the Met does give her new SO1 officers.

Directly to Fred and Kate, Nicola says "It's a unique relationship you develop with your Protective Service Officers, and I have always been extremely lucky to work with the best in the business. They have always made sure I get to come home to my family, often putting themselves at significant risk to do so. But whatever the situation, they are there, cool, calm, and in control. Thank you both for everything, particularly for the excellent patch up job on my wrist," she holds up her still-cast-clad-arm for emphasis, "the defence of my honour as well as my physical safety, and the tactful lies about how much oxygen there may be in closed rooms." Another laugh ripples out across the cavernous building. Malcolm cannot see from the angle of the cameras, but both Fred and Kate have nodded supportively at her. Fred, despite being a man-mountain, has the hint of tears welling in his normally impenetrable eyes.

Earlier in the week, Malcolm helped Nicola select an outrageously expensive bottle of scotch for Fred and an equally expensive bottle of rare gin for Kate – having deduced their preferred spirits from another of her SO1 officers, who felt rather caught in the middle by the entire situation.

She has written them each a card that is exactly as heartfelt as one would expect from Nicola Murray. She has asked the Chief Commissioner to organise special commendations for them, and a posthumous one for Erica. She has gone above and beyond for the people who go above and beyond for her, in classic Nicola Murray fashion. When he was her Communications Director, Malcolm found these little shows of humanity infuriating. Unfortunately, they are also a significant part of what made him fall in love with her.

After gathering herself for a moment, Nicola begins her closing remark "To Maureen and Dave Patterson, I'd like to say thank you for raising such an extraordinary daughter. Erica's selflessness, her compassion, and her desire to help are qualities I know from experience she inherited from the two of you. I am so sorry that bringing me home safely meant that she was unable to come home to you. I know Erica loved her job, and it was a privilege to work with her. I hope this scholarship leaves a legacy she would be proud of."

Another, more sombre "hear, hear" bubbles across the House, and Nicola sinks into her seat. She drops her head in an attempt to hide the tear she covertly wipes from her eye. Margery Creighton, eminently competent Chancellor, places a hand on Nicola's back supportively. Nicola smiles at her ally. Dan Miller leans forward from the first row of the back bench and attempts to give her a handkerchief. Nicola turns to him with a smile and refuses the offer with all the dignity Malcolm has ever seen from her.

"Good girl." He murmurs at the screen. "Good fuckin' girl."

* * *

The children join them for dinner that night, after Nicola has made a fuss over her SO1 officers in her Parliamentary office. She seems lighter than she has in weeks, crossing to him and kissing his cheek, teasing his silver hair. Malcolm doesn't remember the last time she touched him with such languid ease. It's as if her every movement since she got home has been weighed by the stress of what might have happened. Malcolm settles a hand on her lower back, gazes into her eyes probingly. He doesn't say anything. He pecks her lips and lets her go, resolving to speak to her once the kids have buggered off or gone to bed.

They sit down to a takeaway curry at the big dining table. The children used to grizzle about eating in here, arguing that it was much too formal. Nicola once snapped at them about every Prime Minister who'd had children younger than them and still managed some dinners in the nice dining room. They'd behaved slightly better after that, although Josh had once – when he was significantly old enough to know better – run a remote control monster truck over the skirting board and marked the undoubtedly antique wallpaper in the process.

"You were really good today, Mum." Ben says, serving himself too much rice to avoid meeting her gaze. Nicola is somewhere between shocked and touched.

"Thank you, darling. I didn't think you'd be bothered watching."

Ben shrugs, still fussing with his food. "Saw it on Twitter. Graham Norton retweeted it."

Nicola and Malcolm share a glance. Both their eyebrows are raised with surprise. "Oh. Wow," is the best response Nicola can come up with.

"I thought you were brilliant, Mum." Katie agrees quietly. Ella nods, smiling at her mother. Ella doesn't like to think about the fact that her mother nearly didn't come home from a relatively routine trip to Russia, let alone talk about it. But her big sister is right. Her mother was impressive today.

"What are you lot talking about?" Josh asks, broad shoulders squared defensively. Malcolm is waiting for their briefly nice family dinner to become an outright shitfight, but Josh surprises him. "Mum's always good in Parliament."

"Thank you, darling." Nicola smiles, rising and kissing the top of her youngest's shaggy head. Neither Malcolm nor Nicola is aware of quite how much time he spends at uni watching her in PMQs. And on Question Time. And even on Loose Women. With a mum who's been in and out of Cabinet since he was five, watching her interviews has often been the easiest way to feel like he's caught up with her.

"You're such kiss-arse, Joshy." Ella snipes good naturedly.

Katie quickly jumps in before the squabbling becomes genuine, "I think it's fantastic that you're trying to bring more women up in the police. My friend Sandra joined last year and honestly, the way she gets treated is appalling. Some of them talk to her like she's the tea lady."

The conversation quickly turns to broader issues of gender equality, other professions where the gap is pretty poor, such as Nicola's own field. It's the most interesting and civil conversation she's had with all of her children in roughly eighteen months.

Later that night, when they're getting ready for bed, Malcolm comments cautiously. "Yeh seem a bit better, pet." She turns to him, fingers occupied with removing her earrings.

"I think, I just… I realised that if didn't live my life properly then Erica died for nothing. I felt like I owed it to her to get on with it."

Malcolm crosses to her and kisses her forehead tenderly. "I'm glad, pet."

Nicola rests her body against his, props her chin on his chest to look up at him.

"So, I was thinking."

"Hmm?"

"How about that week in Cumbria?"

Malcolm smiles at her, not because of the promise of spending an uninterrupted week with his wife, but because of the shift in her head it implies. He's extremely glad to see the glimmer of mischief in her eyes, the lazy affection he normally finds there. Malcolm bends and presses his lips to hers, the angle awkward but the kiss still delicious.

"Though' yeh'd never ask."


End file.
